Life at IIM-A

Chaos 2008

2008-12-10T16:06:00.003+05:30

The sixth term was always going to be special for me. Two things about which I was passionate about all during my second year were to be materialized in this term. Sangharsh was the first to take place and though ended in a disappointment, gave me memories that will last for more than a lifetime. And then came the other….for which I had probably worked the hardest in IIMA and which was destined to leave me extremely satisfied and joyous, with memories that were to become my friends for life.
Chaos is the annual cultural festival of IIMA and as a fachcha, I was a team member in the last year’s edition. This year, I didn’t want to be in the organizer’s team for both Confluence (our biz fest) and Chaos since that would have meant my entire second year being taken up by these two activities. Confluence was a much well oiled machine and had been running smoothly, while Chaos, though successful, was still not the perfect fest one hoped for and therein lay the challenge for me. I decided to skip conflu and focus all my energies on Chaos, to play my bit in making Chaos a much more successful and smoother event for the future generations of WIMWIans.
ToTo was the Chaos secy and I was given charge of my fav portfolio, the PR team. Something even more special happened as well. This year, unlike last year, ToTo decided to have a 3 member core team from amongst the heads of all the sub-teams. This core team was supposed to manage all the numerous other teams and act as interface to ToTo, since it was tough for him to micromanage everything himself. And to my delight, I was chosen to be one of the 3 core team members, and hence responsible for not only PR, but effectively the entire Chaos, along with my other core team members. I was delighted since this meant additional responsibility and made me feel much closer to the event that had got me extremely passionate….and so began the long but exciting journey of preparation for what would be my last big event at IIMA.

The PR team was responsible for mainly two huge activities – Passes and Publicity. Passes involved all stuff right from the pricing to pass policies to the actual sale, while publicity incorporated everything from outdoor publicity to media coverage. It was going to be an extremely arduous but critical task and I had the support of 4 tuchchas and 10 fachchas in my team. Strategies were starting to get formulated from November. We aspired for a huge crowd as well as financial success, to ensure not only that this Chaos goes down as the biggest ever, but also that the future events are free from financial constraints. This made all pass related decisions extremely critical and we had to ensure that we get everything right from pricing to actual sales in order to achieve our expected results. It was pretty much like a real sales and marketing experience, with a huge amount of money at stake.
The next two months ensured that I was up late nights and my bike was put to maximum use as I went about planning and implementing strategies with the help of my entire team. I made many new contacts in the process in different places. McDonalds, My FM, CCD…..I had made friends with managers of various outlets in the city who were involved with Chaos. My negotiation skills were put to great tests as we went about dealing the terms and conditions with the partners. At the same time, we were almost done with the list of artistes that were going to perform during the 4 nights of Chaos and based on that, the pricing and the sales strategy was almost finalized. Till dec end, things were very smooth and Chaos preps were just another one of the many activities I kept myself busy with. However, come Jan and things started to heat up, and I started sensing how close the event was and automatically, my entire energy was channelized in just one direction, I had only one aim in mind and everything else blacked out in front of that….we had to ensure that this is the best Chaos this institute has ever seen.

All the on-ground work and implementation of various plans started in jan. The partners and venues for pass sales were finalized and so were the deals with other publicity partners. The posters and other publicity material were printed and I must say, the creatives team had indeed done a very good work with them. My otherwise neatly kept room was turned upside down the day printed passes arrived. There were nearly 25000 passes of different formats depending on the performance day as well as the class. All these were kept in my room since that’s the only way I could have kept track of where each pass was going. The floor of my room was full of stacks of passes and crossing my room from the door to the balcony became a game of hop and jump ! But these passes were not yet ready for sale. In order to keep a track, each pass had to be numbered according to a specific series. Furthermore, to prevent counterfeiting, each pass had to undergo certain security steps we had decided on. All this meant dedicated manual labour and for the next 2-3 days, many fachchas from diff teams came over to my dorm, spread all the stuff in the TV room and got down to work. It was a sight to remember. The big room was filled with passes, pens, glues and what not, with 10-12 people sitting on the floor in the form of mini assembly lines, making each pass fit enough to go out to market. Just a week before Chaos, all passes were ready and I had planned out the sale in such a structure that at any instant, I would know which pass no. was sold at which location by which fachcha and at what date.
I had decided that this time, I will record every detail in such a way that the next Chaos team can make coherent conclusions from this data and hence take future decisions. Thus, every pass sale and every publicity related event was carefully planned and recorded so that meaningful conclusions could be drawn any moment. CCD was one of our main pass distribution outlets and each fachcha was made incharge of one outlet. He would give passes to the outlet, keep track of the sales at his outlet and get me back all the cash and remaining passes from that outlet in the end. Apart from this, the team was also selling passes through various other avenues including malls. And yes, just like last year, we again distributed Chaos fliers through newspapers – which essentially implied being at the newspaper distribution vendors at 3 in the night to ensure that the work is done effectively. Even though most of this work was coordinated by my other teammates, I still had to make a couple of visits at 3 am to ensure everything was going smooth.

3-4 days to go and preps were in full swing….pass sale was picking up, slowly but surely….radio had started advertising the event…banners and hoardings were up…all the other Chaos teams were almost ready for the event to start, construction of the stage had started at the LKP and I had not slept for, I forgot how many nights !
And then, like a jolt out of the blue, something happened that sucked the wind out of us. I vividly remember that fateful night 2-3 days before Chaos. I was riding my bike with a teammate behind me, both of us braving the chilly Jan night winds on the highway. My hands were virtually frozen as I drove faster to ensure we reach Nirma Univ quickly – we were going there to sell passes at their canteen during dinner time. I was initially not supposed to go due to the huge amount of work I had on campus, but due to unavailability of a vehicle, I ended up riding my bike. Just as we reached our destination, my phone rang. Since I was parking the bike, I asked my teammate to pick it up. As I saw his face change colours, I sensed something was not right. “Chaos has been cancelled due to the death of a family member of one of our profs !” As the words came out of his mouth, I felt my grip on the bike weakening. My mind was numb and I didn’t know how to react. On one hand my heart went out to professor and his family…and on the other images of months of hard work and sleepless nights flashed through my minds…and then I started thinking about the future and all the contracts we had made and all the passes we had sold and….”Vinz, there is an emergency batch meet at 9. We have to leave immediately.” His words jolted me out of my thoughts. Rarely had so many thoughts entered my mind at the same time and I knew I had to shake them all off and rush back to campus.
I don’t think I would have driven my bike faster ever. The chill in the wind was of no consequence now. My mind was too occupied to be bothered by anything else and I drove in a pseudo trance till I reached campus. I bolted to the RJM where the meet was to take place. As I entered, I saw ToTo, grim and worried. I had a brief chat with him and he updated me on the situation. For the next hour, there were discussions and debates in the auditorium, with all of us trying to reach some sort of consensus as to what our future course of action should be. It was finally decided that we will have a talk with the relevant authorities to see if there is still some way to conduct the event at a later date in a condensed version. Till then, Chaos had been postponed indefinitely.

As I walked out of RJM, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Chaos had become my baby and I could sense the helplessness of seeing it slip away from my hands, unable to protect it. For the next couple of days, millions of meetings took place, trying to give this problem a practical solution. And then it happened. We were told that we can conduct the event next weekend instead of the scheduled one, and that instead of 4 days, it will now be reduced to 3 days. The Chaos team had an emergency meeting that night and we briefed everyone about the situation. We were all glad that the event was back on track but at the same time, we knew its going to be even tougher challenge coz we had to undo a lot of things we had done earlier and then redo them differently. Rebooking the artistes, renegotiating the sponsorship contracts, handling the passes for which the refund process had already started and printing the publicity material/passes again with the new dates were just some of the problems that needed immediate attention.
We four, the core team and ToTo, met up after the meeting to chalk out the plan for the next 7 days. We braced ourselves up for the sleepless nights that were to follow but we all had one thing in common – the zeal and passion to make Chaos a hit despite the setback it had suffered. The next week was as tough as it could get, but I enjoyed each and every moment of it. Somehow I was bestowed with infinite energy when it came to Chaos and I knew that I will be at my best till the very last night of Chaos.
Everything was executed as planned and as the D-day approached, the pass sales picked up, motivating us even further to give it everything we had. One day before Chaos, the sales counter at the main gate started to witness long queues and that’s when we knew we have hit the jackpot. I was very sure that we are in for a bumper sale and our dream of seeing a houseful Chaos is closer to fulfillment. My name was mentioned as the contact point on every publicity material that went out in the city including the newspaper ads. As a result, my phone did not stop ringing for last 2 days and I knew that’s how it’s going to be till Chaos ends. It was maddening but I ensured I remain polite with everyone and welcome them to the event.

Come D-day, 1st Feb and there was a buzz of excitement all around the campus. By the evening, huge queues had already formed at the LKP entrance. Fachchas were busy selling tickets at the main gate which was so crowded that IIM guards had to be called in to maintain order and security. I had also taken charge of the security along with the security team heads and I was shuttling between the main gate and the LKP to ensure things were smooth at both ends. It was a scene of high voltage activity with our walkie-talkies crackling every other minute. After regular intervals, there will be some high pitched voice informing us about some incident that needs immediate attention. One of us would reply that we are close to the scene and will attend to it and then rush to that spot. I had allocated duties of fahchas to sell tickets at the main gate during all 3 nights in such a way that everyone got to witness at least some portion of the show and have some fun. We had to ensure that there’s no security breach since the crowd was only increasing in intensity. At the same time, there was some seriously huge cash being collected at the main gate ticket counter and I had to ensure that there’s safety on that front as well. But my fachchas were a great help and for all 3 days of Chaos, they ensured that they handled the ticket sale responsibility well since I got busy in other stuff like security and sorting out any urgent incident.
Fuzon was the main band to perform on the first night and they indeed mesmerized the crowd with their hits such as ‘tere bina’ and ‘aankhon ke sagar’. Later that night, it was time for the rock competition in the auditorium which lasted almost the entire night! And oh boy, I had never expected it to be such a huge hit. We were completely sold out and even then there was a huge queue for people to buy tickets somehow. It looked like a scene straight out of a movie theatre playing a much anticipated film for the first time. I managed the security at the auditorium for some time but was so exhausted by 3 am that I went back to my room and crashed, with a hope to get at least some sleep before the bigger days to come.The second day was reserved for Dance competitions and the fashion show, which were as usual dominated again by NID. NID has been a consistent achiever at these two events at Chaos for the past few years and this year was no different. The night also saw the music video launch of Gaurav Dahaonkar’s, an IIMA alumni, first ever music album.
And then to culminate Chaos came the biggest night of all, the one that entire Ahmedabad had been waiting for. We knew this was the night that will determine how big a success Chaos actually becomes. The queue that evening got longer and longer and the rush at the tickets counter was unprecedented. I had to send extra fachchas to open up another desk to ensure smooth sale of passes. I had never seen such a huge crowd on campus. Thousands of people flocked the otherwise serene LKP lawns. As far as the eye could see, there were people and more people, all of them waiting anxiously for the stage to erupt. I was going crazy trying to handle the events at the main gate as well as LKP but the enthusiasm and excitement was too high for me to get tired. And while I was on my way to the LKP, I heard a huge uproar and shrieks of thousands of fans and I knew the moment has finally arrived. All our months of hard work boiled down to this one artist who we knew will rock this event. The lights went dim, a guitar came to life and there he was…singing as melodiously as one ever could…..KK was on stage and it looked as if entire city was on the LKP ! We had taken great pains to get KK to perform at Chaos despite the rescheduling of the event. But we knew that he is a super performer and he alone can turn the tide of Chaos. And that’s exactly what happened.
For the next couple of hours, KK mesmerized the audience with his phenomenal energy, stamina, charisma and melody….every song that he sang was a huge hit with the crowd. I was initially not present when the show started. But after some time, I heard bambu’s voice crackle on my walkie-talkie – “Vinz come in…plz leave all work now and come to the front of the stage…entire chaos team is there to enjoy KK and only u r missing” ! I smiled and headed for the LKP. As I reached the front of the stage, right next to where KK was singing, I saw the entire Chaos team distributed on the two sides of the stage, singing and dancing ! As soon as I reached there, bamboo snatched my walkie and kept it in his bag, signaling me to stop work finally now and enjoy the fruits of success :)
For the next hour or so, we sang and danced as if there was no tomorrow. KK had truly rocked Chaos and by the time he left, we were all over the moon, knowing that this was a grand success. ToTo went on stage at the end of it all, thanked everyone and called the entire Chaos team up on the stage. We all jumped up with joy and thanked the audience….the smiles on our face telling the entire story. We were all like kids who have been suddenly given a great birthday gift….this was the gift we all had been waiting for since long.

As the crowd dispersed and the team got into the infinite photo sessions and media interviews, I and bamboo looked at each other and smiled. We both have had a tiresome past few months in ensuring that Chaos ends in no less spectacular way than this. We have had countless discussions and debates during countless sleepless nights….he was the logi incharge and he knew he had done a great job as well. ToTo was ecstatic as expected….and deservedly so ! We had not only witnessed one of the grandest Chaos ever, but were successful financially as well to secure the future of Chaos.
I could not sleep that night even though my legs felt like a log. After the euphoria had subsided, the mind began to put the pieces together…..the huge expectations, financial constraints, months of hard labour, the near end of Chaos even before it began, the mind boggling crowd…..and the bonds of friendships that I secured – the past few months seemed like a fairytale !

Its been almost one year now, but the thrill is as fresh as it was that night. I can still hear the din of the crowd, I can still see the happiness in ToTo’s eyes, I can still feel the chill in the air that touched me as I stood alone at LKP after the show…….As I look longingly at the Chaos poster I had saved with me, somewhere deep inside I yearn…yearn for time to rewind…rewind to those days of immortal bliss...those days whose memories will light up my day and moisten my eyes at the same time all my life….

Sangharsh 2008

2008-06-26T02:43:00.000+05:30

Of the many threads that united most of the wimwians over the past two years, sports had certainly been one of the strongest. What started way back at the end of first term and built up in energy for the next one year was finally going to come alive again at the start of our final term….. Sangharsh 2008 was here to electrify the batch after we all were back from our holidays. For the uninitiated, Sangharsh is the annual IIMA vs IIMB sports meet whose inaugural edition was won by IIMA at home ground and the second edition was now going to take place in B’lore in the early part of jan.
After our emphatic win last time, Sangharsh had already become close to our hearts and we had been practicing quite decently for the past few days. Agreed, it was not at all an organized practice with a proper plan but even then, we used to keep on playing almost all the sports regularly and barring few sports, most of the players were in decent form in their respective games. I was, once again, part of the badminton and cricket teams. I wanted to try for TT as well as I knew I can make it to the team, but just like last time, I thought I better stick to two sports n give it my best shot there.
Few days before Sangharsh, I had gone to FMS in a sports meet and had won the silver medal in Badminton there. That success had given me some morale boost as I practiced baddy at the IMDC courts on campus. However, its an open court and hence we couldn’t really get some serious practice done. The baddy team had all fachchas except me and Guru. We did hire an indoor court few days before our trip to B’lore and I was quite satisfied with whatever preparation we could muster. SoDo, the other singles player in the team apart from me, was in great touch and though I used beat him earlier in singles, lately he had started beating me in closely fought games and was peaking at the right time.
Cricket practice was much better and organized this time compared to last year. This sportscom, of which I was a member as well, ensured that nets and mats were laid out in time on our college ground so that we could get some serious practice done. But we lacked match practice and little did we know that this would actually turn out to be our nemesis later on.
On a typical day, I would finish my classes and then head out to the cricket ground by 4 pm. Oh boy, what a beautiful time that used to be. Lush green grass and a shining red ball in my hand…..an exciting combination! I would bowl my heart out for as long as I can and then just sit on the green grass n have a light chat with everyone. After dark, I would head out to the baddy court to play some singles with SoDo and by the time I was off the court, I was a dead man physically, but super charged up mentally. Sweating it out hard on the baddy court was the most relaxing thing for me….funny, I know, but that’s how it was!
Similar practice was on for football as well; but I was worried about other sports where we hardly practiced. All we sportscom members would sit late nights to work out the modalities of organizing the trip and then discuss the progress of our practice in diff sports. It felt so good to be back in the thick of action of something so exciting and we all looked forward to retaining the trophy with great anticipation.

As we left campus for the airport, quite a lot of junta had turned up to bid us goodbye and cheer for us. Atom, one of our beloved sportscom members, broke open a coconut in front of the bus, to wish us luck :) As the wheels of the bus turned, so did the knob on my i-pod. I have a habit of gaining inspiration from music and this time was no different. As others chatted around me in the bus, I silently looked out of the window, the music in my ears reminding me of the hard work I had put in to prepare for this event. An year long wait had come to an end and now was the time to make everyone proud. I said a silent prayer for the entire contingent and joined others in their conversations.

It was dark when we reached the IIMB campus and as expected, there were posters and slogans everywhere welcoming us with a smirk! I loved it….these guys have revenge on their minds and will go all out to snatch the trophy from us. I knew that instant that it was going to be an exciting affair and a tough one for us to beat this blood thirsty opponent on its own ground.

Badminton was going to be the first event right after dinner and hence I hardly ate anything. The players reached the court in time and to our dismay, we realized that it is way too slippery. The IIMB guys also admitted the same but that was a constraint under which we had to play and we accepted it sportingly. The draws were going to be crucial. We knew they had a national level player in their team and our hope was to avoid him playing me in the singles as that would have implied wasting my match since I was expected to win my singles against anyone apart from him. It would have been ideal for us had he played our weakest player.
But sports are not played on ifs and buts. Sports are played on courage, a willingness to take on any challenge and hence I didn’t want all these permutations to distract me. If I am a good sportsman, I should be prepared to play anyone and fight till the end. I guess god took my attitude a bit too seriously, giving me a chance to implement all my sports philosophies :) And so with Murphy’s law playing its part, the draw ensured that it was me who got slotted to play that nationals player in singles. But honestly speaking, I was glad after few initial anxieties. I was the captain of the team and I knew I have the courage to take on the very best opponent and not letting someone else in my team get sacrificed. It was the time to grab the bull by its horns and sweat it out to result in an upset win.
As I stepped on the court, my mind was struggling to keep calm. On one side I heard the loud cheers of my support group, rooting for the player who had got them victory exactly one year back….on the other side I was the target of sledges of the opponent’s camp, booing the player who had handed them defeat exactly one year back. I tried hard to shake away all these distractions from my head and concentrate on the task at hand. It was tough. He was playing a flawless game and I was on the backfoot right from the first point. I tried hard to cope up, trying to make him run around the court, but he proved to be one step better at every instant and within a short time the first game was over….As I took a break to cool off my head, scenes from the past flashed in front of my eyes….I saw how I won my singles in the last Sangharsh, I saw how my seniors carried me on their shoulders after the victory, I saw flashes of brilliance that I knew I am capable of …..and as I entered back into the arena that had become the first battleground of Sangharsh 2008, I began to believe a lot more in myself and vowed to die sweating it out before I give up. My game did improve and I felt more relaxed. But my unforced errors continued and even though I was stretching him much more now and getting back into my usual rhythm, he was playing equally well, responding to all my drops and placements with panache. I did win a couple of very good rallies and though they boosted my morale, I started to realize that it’s not long before the inevitable happens.
As I left the court, after being handed a straight games defeat, I was furious with myself. I dropped my racket on the ground and just stood there, my head bowed down lest anyone sees the tears from my eyes dripping on the floor in the pretext of sweat. I was numb….an year of hard work washed away in half an hour of misery. I didn’t know whether to be sad or angry….I knew I am a much better player than what I did out there, I knew I could have stretched him much much more to give myself more chances, I knew that the reason I lost was because I made just too many unforced errors and though I don’t dispute his talent at all, I gave away the match due to my own silly mistakes and may be my over eagerness to play excellently. It’s a bad feeling…it eats you from inside….when you know you frittered away the match due to your own idiotic mistakes when you are capable of much more.
But I guess that’s what sports is all about…. to peak at the right time and to seize your moment. I did neither and hence paid the price. The silver medal won last month was a pale memory now… Sangharsh was far more crucial and I will never be able to forget the reversal of fortunes from my great victory on the courts of Sardar patel stadium Ahmedabad to the idiotic defeat in the first Sangharsh event at IIMB.
We lost baddy that night, SoDo’s lone singles victory going in vain. But we knew we had the firepower to hit back in the other sports….after all, Sangharsh had just begun and there were 11 more sports to go. Football, Snooker, TT & Tennis were the sports we were very sure of winning and we knew that by the end of the day, we will be back in the reckoning to defend our trophy successfully. But I guess it just wasn’t meant to be our year this time. Our football team suffered a shock defeat, once again falling prey to their own follies. We lost very narrowly in Snooker, despite the brilliance of Anubhav and the same fate followed in Tennis, despite the greatness of Shetty’s grit and talent. Two of our champion players won their matches but the team still lost….Snooker and Tennis defeats were the turning points of the tournament. By now, IIMB was in full flow and having pulled out two upset victories, they knew their task was much simpler now. We did make a good comeback when our TT team romped home with a convincing thrashing of the opponents and our volley team, lead by the ever dependable and skillful Gendy, pulled off a well fought victory in front of a boisterous crowd. With Chess also in our bag, by the evening, things started looking bright and we knew if we can just pull off a couple of more good wins, we will be on our way to our dream. Thowball was a very close affair and I give full marks to our girls team which, without any practice, played extremely well till the end but ran out of luck. With Basketball, Swimming and Cricket remaining for the final day, we knew that it was only a miracle now that could save us. Our basky team fought hard but without any success and our cricket team got beaten comprehensively.......IIMB had taken there revenge and beaten IIMA 9-4 to claim Sangharsh 2008.

Sitting in the bus looking out of the window, I could see nothing of the B’lore traffic zip past me….all I could see were glimpses of the past two days flashing by my eyes – Sitting alongside the tennis court rooting for Shetty and his men till it got dark, Clapping hard in appreciation of Anubhav’s masterful game on the green table, Watching guru pot some impossible looking shots and missing out some innocuous simple ones, Shouting for Gendy and his team at the top of our voice on every spike that he hit, Cheering hard for our girls throwball team trying to match the vociferous support that the home team enjoyed and advising the girls as though we were throwball gold medalists….. and Admiring the lovely speech that Adrian, our sports captain, gave at the closing ceremony that moved everyone present irrespective of the college he was from…..

Sports is a great leveler, it teaches you never to give up and makes you humble at the same time….but Sangharsh is much more than that. It’s a bond that we all have shared for two years…..Its the victory shrieks we have shouted together….Its the dismay n disappointment we have felt together…..but at the end of it all, its an emotion which we will never be able to express, an emotion that will manifest itself into action on the ground every single year, an emotion that will always bind all we wimwians where each one of us will stand by each other holding hands…. in times of trials… and in times of triumphs…!

Acumen Part II

2008-06-25T02:02:00.002+05:30

After the exhilarating regional round, we had a break of few days before the national finals. Topics were given to us much before the event so as to ensure top quality debating and the entire evening was going to be telecasted as a TV episode. We were slotted to face IIFT in the semi-finals and the other semis was between IIMB and IIMC. Now IIFT were the defending national champions and hence we knew that our task is going to be cut out. But in a way it pumped us even more and we relished the challenge thrown at us. We had to speak ‘against’ the topic, “India’s demographic dividend is nothing but marketing hype”. We did lots of research and analysis in the days building up to the event and even though me and Maclo were in diff cities (our vacations had started), we still worked together over the net to ensure that we are well prepared. It was a tough but interesting topic and had a huge scope for throwing a lot of facts and figures that could be used to take either stand on the topic. Come D-Day and both of us felt very confident about the thoroughness of our preparation.
As we reached one of the grandest hotels in Mumbai, the venue for the event, we realized just how big this thing is! The eminent crowd consisting of senior managers from the two sponsor companies, cameras and wires spread all around and Harsha Bhogale again at his wittiest best…….I surprisingly remained quite calm amidst all this excitement. I knew I couldn’t afford to get overawed by the occasion and had to be relaxed.
The moment finally arrived and as usual, Maclo started the proceedings. It was always this ways. He would be the first one to speak and I will do the other half and the conclusion. I really dunno why we stuck to this pattern. Guess we just didn’t want to change luck ! As the debate went on, it became extremely interesting and I actually started enjoying myself out there. Both teams were thoroughly prepared with all facts n figures on their fingertips ! The great thing was that we both referred to the same Goldman Sachs report and used it to arrive at contrasting conclusions, giving the report our own interpretations. And neither was wrong…..It was just how you back it up! After the gripping 12 minutes, it was time for Q&As and boy, what a grueling session that was. Judges went hammer n tongs at both teams but I feel me and Maclo handled the questions better n with more confidence. The good thing was that we both spoke almost equally unlike our competitors where one person answered most of the questions. It was a sight to see…..both me and Maclo were working like a well oiled machine….discussing the answer with each other comfortably and then automatically one of us would step up to answer without any hitches. I loved the way we complemented each other.
After the second semi-final was over, which was, as expected, another keenly fought affair, it was time for the results……I had always been quite confident about the results being in our favour in the regional round, but now, I knew it was anybody’s game…..I knew it was a genuinely very very closely fought battle and was actually glad that am not one of the judges. And then it happened. We had achieved the unimaginable……we defied all odds to beat the defending champions and enter the grand national final! Oh boy, what a thrill that was….me n Maclo hugged each other, still coming to terms with the magnitude of our success! We knew just how tough this battle was and were elated at our achievement :) We were to face IIMC in the finals.

We were to speak ‘for’ the topic “India’s business leaders should take over the political leadership”. It was a relatively simpler topic than the last one, where we didn’t need as many figures n data. We prepared decently enough and I was much more relaxed this time compared to the semis. I felt good about the topic and was keen to go up there n carry on our good form. And as if the grandness of the event was not enough already, a pleasant surprise came our way in the form of the chief guest of the evening…..none other than John Abraham! I didn’t know that he’s an MBA as well and the entire place was electrified due to his presence.
We had to keep a cool mind as this was our last hurdle…we didn’t want anything to faze us. We had come a long way and were determined to leave this place as winners. Maclo started as usual, and started well as usual :) The debate went on to become very lively indeed as this was a topic where every audience member had an opinion about, unlike the last one which was much more technical in nature. The judges questions were sharp and we had to be crisp n lucid in our responses. But we did well and I again felt that we handled the Q&A better than the opposition.
At the end of it all, Harsha Bhogale had to admit that the semis and finals were by far the highest level of debating he has seen…that compliment itself was a victory for all of us! After an agonizing wait, which saw the quizzes being played out, it was finally the time for declaring the debate national champions…….oh man, I cant remember when was I last so anxious and nervous. That’s the thing with me. I will be a statue of calmness and confidence when it’s the time to perform. But when its results time, I start getting the jitters…but I guess its coz I know I hv given my best already and can afford to be nervous now :) Anyways, coming back to the moment……my fingers had started aching a bit now that I had them crossed for over an hour! There was a silence just before announcing the runners-up name, which got filled with shouts of IIMC from somewhere behind in the audience. It felt good to know that some people thought we had done better and deserved to win. And then came the moment of truth……….

As me and Maclo went up on the stage to collect the runners-up prizes from John and other judges, I found it a bit tough to hide the disappointment on my face. But astonishingly, as we came back to Maclo’s family in the audience, my mind started realizing how big our prize is nevertheless and my heart slowly but surely started feeling more content than before. And when people from the audience came up personally to tell us how good we were, I knew that I had nothing to be disappointed about….We had made our insti proud!

“Dude, we have come a long way from that lazy evening on campus”, Maclo’s words had never been so soothing before. As he stood there smiling at me, his family admiring the prizes he had won, I smiled back at him. A smile of satisfaction, a smile of triumph, a smile thanking him for being with me in this journey, a smile that proved that the past two months have left us only richer in experience, a smile that said it all…….

Few years down the line all this will look so inconsequential in the larger scheme of life, Acumen might just be forgotten as yet another one of my experiences during the years at IIMA……but I know somewhere deep inside, the thrill of those days will never cease to put a smile on my lips, probably the same smile that me and Mohit Sadani shared that night of December 2007 at ITC Grand Central, Mumbai…far away from the red brick walls of home….

Acumen 2007

2008-06-24T01:20:00.002+05:30

It was a lazy evening when instead of being on the streets of ahmedabad on my bike, I was passing my not so precious time on dbabble, chatting away to glory. The now so familiar beep of a new msg on dbab informed me that the trials for BT Acumen, India’s largest national B-School quiz n debate competition are gonna be help at 10 pm in CR 4. To admit honestly, I had never heard of acumen before even though I later found out how big the annual event was. But, being ever ready for any extra currics, ( as long as its not a case study competiton :) ), and specially one that involved public speaking, my fav, I decided to give it a try. As it is, I didn’t have much to do that night except of course playing cricket n watching a movie !
So I landed at CR 4 and as expected, there were a bunch of studs of IIMA, waiting to be a part of the team that was to be selected to represent the institute this year for debate. Glancing around the room I realized that with such heavyweights around, I might just be wasting my time here. “But well, now that I am here, I might as well give it my best shot”, the words traveled instantly from my brain to the tongue as I saw Maclo stride into the room. Maclo was this stud McKinsey dude who had never ever debated before in life and came that night with the sole intention of giving me company since I didn’t have any partner to go with. It was a team of two that was to be selected and from the 15-16 odd candidates, it was decided that from the 8 teams, top 2 candidates will be selected irrespective of which team they belonged to. And so began the trials…..each team of 2 given a topic and after a min one guy spoke for the motion and the other against it. When our turn came, I saw Maclo instantly spring into action, chalking down points that would build our arguments. I never doubted his intellect n sharpness, neither his speaking style. But he had never debated before and hence wasn’t sure if this is his cup of tea. Anyways, just like me, he didn’t have much lined up that night I suppose (hello…..placecommer with no work…hahaha) and hence he turned up to give me a partner so that at least I could try out. But I always knew that he’s a great speaker irrespective of his past debate credentials and hence was confident of our chances. We worked well…he gave a lot of inputs on the arguments and I structured all of it and the way we need to present n speak. We spoke well, but so did the other 7 teams!
Results were announced pretty quickly and I really didn’t expect anything looking at the standard of the competition…the very best of IIMA were there. But then it happened. I was stunned for few seconds when they announced that I had topped with the max points…and not only this, Maclo was next to follow – which implied that me and Maclo were the debate team from IIMA at this year’s Acumen! Oh boy, my happiness knew no bounds….It was the first time at IIMA where I had truly achieved something very significant by beating top competition...and it was public speaking again that did it, something close to my heart since my school days. Maclo was ecstatic as well, though displaying much less emotions than me, still not very convinced that he spoke so well despite his virtually zilch past record in debating. One can say that it was a grand Debate Debut for him ! Little did we know that the coming few days would bring us even more excitement…

Next step was the West Zone regional rounds. Each zone had a regional round that would throw up one team which would be representing that zone in the national finals. The entire process was to take a couple of months. Both of us headed to Mumbai where the west zone regional was to take place over a period of two days at Wellingkar institute of management. We arrived quite early and all we saw all around were teams all decked up in suits, from all over the western part of India, some nervous, some confident, and some having fun. It was a grand event for sure. There was a buzz everywhere, no dearth of media and the sponsors’ presence was felt all over the walls and corridors. In a nut shell, it was an exciting n happening place to be in. We were given badges with our insti names on them. The IIM-A tag did raise a few eyes - easy enough to unnerve you if u start feeling the burden of expectation but also sure to boost your morale if you are thinking clearly in your head. I don’t know about Maclo but I kind of enjoyed the attention and was even more determined to prove our worth as was expected out of us. We couldn’t let our brand down so early in the competition.
With about 30 odd teams, by the end of the day, 4 teams were to be selected to fight out the semis and finals the next day. The topics were already given to us and we had done our homework. But we only got to know whether we are speaking for or against the motion on the spot itself. These qualifiers were help in 4-5 diff classrooms, judged by eminent personalities from the India Today group and the Aditya Birla group. We both spoke well, and barring a couple of points that we thought we missed, I was quite satisfied with our performance. The results were out by the afternoon and yes, we had made it to the semis :) We were both glad n relaxed. We at least wont have to face the ignominy of going back to college having been shown the door in the first round itself. Now was time for some serious business and for the first time, we seriously started to think about winning the zone. Till now, we never saw long term. We just thought we will give it our best n have a good time. But now apart from enjoying the event, we started wanting to create some history here for our insti. And the best part is, we believed in ourselves ! We spent the remaining day preparing for the semis topic. We were to face IRMA in the semis and we knew from now, nothing will be easy.

The next day, the auditorium was jam packed, with various colleges making an official visit with their teachers to witness the finale. But if you think that it was our debating that brought them all there, well, think again. The crowd puller of the day was none other than the witty n ever smiling host of Acumen, Harsha Bhogale! He has been with Acumen for 2-3 years now and was going to be our companion on stage for the whole day. Ours was the first semi-final. When Harsha announced our names and that of our insti, and when I started my trip to the stage with the beats of some dhinchak music blaring our of the speakers, I felt so proud…..proud of being there to represent my IIMA…proud of being on stage in front of TV cameras and a huge audience….and proud of not letting Maclo down. Once I was up there, I knew I had a job to do and was eager to blast off. Harsha made a witty good natured remark on my name – another one of the times in my life when I have been so thankful to my parents for giving me this name :) We spoke ‘for’ the topic, “An MBA is the most over hyped academic qualification in India today” – what an irony, isn’t it ! After all 4 people from both teams had spoken for 3 minutes each, each team could ask the other two questions, which was then followed by any no. of questions from the judges seated in the audience. So it was going to be a long fought battle for sure. We did well at the end of it and specially with the Q&As and I left the stage feeling satisfied. Results were announced after lunch and as Harsha spoke out our names as the finalists, I gave a hi-five to Maclo and we knew we are just a step away now!

Now comes the best part! We were to face Wellingkar, the host team, in the final. Not only did we have to be ready to witness huge support for the home team, there was another coincidence! Maclo’s girl friend (and now his fiancée), who was all along helping us and rooting for us, is from Wellingkar itself :) Oh man, poor girl..divided between loyalties for her boy friend and her college !
We prepared well for the finals, even though we just had a short span of couple of hours to do so. But I knew that more imp than anything was to keep our nerves. I knew by experience that at this stage, it’s a lot to do with the way you answer and argue, apart from just the content of your arguments. And hence we both paid special attention to this aspect. And as I stepped once again on the now familiar stage, the blood in my veins flew at breakneck speed and the only thing on my mind was to emerge victorious as that was the only way to quiet the boisterous support the home team was enjoying. We spoke ‘against’ the topic “Soft skills, and not technical proficiency, are what separates the great managers from the good ones”. It was a tough side to take on the issue n we knew we had an arduous task at hand….But as the debate went on, my confidence grew every minute. And by the time it came to Q&As, I think we were in a state of mind where nothing could faze us. The questions were tricky and twisted and demanded some quick thinking backed up by sound logic. I was so much drowned into the action that after discussing the answers with Maclo for few seconds, I only ended up answering most of them, though we had decided we will split it up. But he gave me a thumbs up to go ahead with every answer and his confidence in me pumped me up further.

After the exhausting grilling, we were off the stage, holding our breath for the final results. For the next hour, I was on the edge of my seat. Maclo was much more relaxed than me….may be it was her presence or just that he’s very calm by nature, I don’t know. But I couldn’t relax till the moment when it finally happened. As I walked down the aisle to the stage, the thunderous applause finding its way from my ears to my heart, I looked for Maclo to accompany me….and that moment I realized how much it meant to him as well….He was already ahead of me waiting to climb the stage and collect the winners’ prizes.

And as I stood there posing for the cameras with Maclo and acknowledging the warm appreciation by the jam packed auditorium, my mom and dad watched on the TV the news about how IIMA has emerged as the West Zone Champions….

From the lazy evening on campus that day to the happening centre stage of a grand event, it had been an unexpected but rewarding journey. And even though we knew that the Nationals is our next step, we thought nothing about it. That night was ours to savour. And when congrats messages by our batch mates started pouring in on dbabble, I knew that I had played my small part in making my college proud… something that will always remain close to my heart.

Not to forget the new ties of friendship that I forged with Maclo….I was sure these days would be the topic of our reminiscence when we catch up with each other over a drink 10 years down the line…

The 5th Term

2008-06-23T14:23:00.001+05:30

The last term had clearly been the best in terms of lack of academic rigour….and that followed by Shodh Yatra was the icing on the cake ! Having experienced the bliss of being a tuchcha, I was all set to continue enjoying life to the fullest in the next term as well. But I also ensured that I do not lose focus on the quality of courses that I chose. And hence I took up an interesting set of subjects that I thought I would love studying, apart from, of course, the fact that they should fit into the time table nicely so as not to interfere in my blissful activites of tuchchadom :)

I took five courses and an independent project : International Business Dispute and Resolution (Yep, u learn that too in MBA!), Legal Aspects of Business (No no, I don’t intend to be a lawyer..its a compulsory subject), Managerial Communication, Merger Acquisitions and Corporate Restructuring & Philosophical Foundations of Management (yeah, you read it right !). The project was on Negotiation in Movies J

I am still so proud of the kind of subjects I took…Hahaha ! IBDR was taken by a prof about whom I had heard so much that I couldn’t help signing up for the course. And trust me, I had no regrets. He was clearly one of the best profs of IIMA when it comes to teaching style and humour ! He was very particular in making sure we all were up to date with our current affairs and GK. Our classes would begin by discussin some of the headlines of the day and his sharp and witty take on those. He would often show us some youtube videos of some great ads etc; he was a big movie buff and lots of his examples somehow traced their way back to some 70s hindi movie :). The best part was that the quizzes and exams were newspaper articles which we had to interpret and analyze given the theory that we studied in the class! And the classes were all court cases between fighting companies over legal/political/personal issues! IBDR classes were fun and I had decided that I will again take the same prof’s courses in the next term as well. It was a diff coincidence altogether that I again got to interact a lot with him during Chaos, about which I will write later.
MC was a big value add. A short course on communication, which I initially thought I don’t need, but was proved so wrong when I went through it! Another excellent prof, with a brilliant teaching style! No theory at all. Only action! In every class, student will speak in front of everyone , sometimes impromptu, other times some prepared articles. The audience will then rate the speaker on a scale of ten and all those ratings would determine the final grade of the student! The prof has nothing to do with the grading:) And trust me, there were hardly any biases involved coz grades were the last things on our minds! The course was so inspiring that we all loved every bit of it. Two biz presentations in the end that were video recorded cleared small chinks in our armory and everyone ended the course feeling much more confident about ourselves. MC was clearly one of the best and most valuable courses I have done in the two years at IIMA.
PFM was a great experience as well. The course dealt with philosophers and their ideologies and even though lot of times I hadn’t the slightest clue about whats happening in the class, I still loved it. That’s coz arguably the two best profs of IIMA took the course. Prof Ajay Pandey and Prof Seb Morris! I was bowled over by their intellect! PFM classes got the most creative and intellectual juices flow out of them. Their depth in fields as diverse as Biology to History to Maths to Physics to Arts was stunning. I was amazed as to how could someone know so much. And on top of that, the classes were nothing but discussions between us n them. Mind u, when I say us, I don’t mean I :) I was almost always a mute spectator! But couple of guys in the class were very learned on the subject and they led the discussions. Nevertheless, a very unique course indeed!

So academically, the term was a bit more hectic than the last one, also coz I had taken MACR, which I knew involved quite a bit of finance to which I will need to devote extra time! But it was worth it coz I got to learn a lot from the course.

But the term was not an acads term at all! So what was the highlight of the term? What kept all tuchchas at IIMA busy in the 5th term? Well, one answer – Business Competitions! Yep, u got it right…almost every B-School conducts a Biz Fest during this period. These fests consists of various case contests, biz games, quizzes, trading games and so on….The interesting thing I realized during this time was that people took part in all these contests with diff motives! Some of them did it to boost their CVs for placements – a lot of awards in diff biz contests at prestigious B-Schools surely add weight to ur CV; Others did it coz of the monetary benefits – all the contests do offer some hefty prizes; and finally the rest did it coz they didn’t hv much else to do on campus :)

Honestly speaking, I didn’t know which category I fell into. Actually, initially I didn’t even want to take part in any contest. I wanted to stay clear coz I knew it would involve a lot of work and I was somehow in no mood to work a lot in my tuchchadom days! I thought lemme know enjoy n hv fun and do bit of acds and that’s all! In fact, that was one of the reasons I didn’t even join the organizing team of Confluence this year, despite many requests coming my way to do so. However, I slowly realized that its good if I do take part in at least few of these contests – both for my CV as well as for doing something intellectual rather than just sitting around n watching movies!

And so I ended up joining a team. The funda is that before the season, teams of 4-5 are formed and the team then takes part in all the contests during the entire term in diff fests! And the most prestigious of all the events was of course the one at the most premier institute – our very own Confluence! I slowly realized that people were very serious about the winning the Award of Excellence at Confluence, an award given to the best team that gathers most points across diff events! And even though my team indeed had some very stud people, we were somehow not very enthu abt the award. We just wanted to participate and win as much as we could. Simple.

And thus began the great B-School contests fever of the 5th term! Cases after cases, quizzes after quizzes! It was kind of fun sometimes, and seemed like a huge burden at other times. With everyone sharing work, it never got overbearing. But it certainly kept us busy the entire term.

Confluence was good fun. This year I was not in the organizing team and that gave me an opportunity to participate in lots of events. And we actually did win a couple of prizes to our delight, even though we didn’t expect to with out not so diligent efforts :) The four days of Confluence were pretty much like the last year. Diff faces but similar structure. A welcome break for all of us when the campus was buzzing with people from all over the country, when we at times wont find place to sit in our very own CT! But it was so satisfying to see that the event was a huge hit as usual – and I was so happy for the organizing team coz I had gone thru the effort it takes to make this a success and knew the joy of seeing it all unfold so nicely….Well done Dola, the Conflu Coord, and the entire team, who worked their hearts out for months together for these 4 days of success!

As for me, well, to tell the truth, I did feel a bit left out. I have always been into the heart of all activities at IIMA and was feeling weird not being a part of Conflu team….being on the other side was not really something that excited me. I wanted to be in the thick of action, working days n nights n then feeling proud to play my role in this grand event….but I knew that as the clock ticks away, my time is gonna come near, where I will be right back into action…Chaos was not very far away :)

But that didn’t mean that I had a sedate term. Apart from all the contests I took part in and won, there was something very special that happened to me and that unexpected success will perhaps be one of my biggest ever in life…I will write about it in my next entry…but this term would essentially be remembered for the rush of enthusiasm and diligence it infused into the otherwise laid back tuchcha life, all thanks to the frenzy of biz contests!

Apart from that, life was rocking….Badminton, Late night cricket, movies, exploring ahmd, mess food and all the craziness in the dorms….some things never change !

Shodh Yatra

2008-04-08T13:39:00.003+05:30

One of the reasons why this institute stands on a pedestal so higher than others is the uniqueness and ingenuity in its course curriculum and methodology of its implementation. This was instantly ratified the moment I joined and heard about this course called Shodh Yatra. Here was a course so different from the rest that its hard not to catch the fantasy of anyone.

This course takes place in the term break between the fourth and fifth terms. A group of 30 odd students are taken on a week long trek to diff places in India every year by Prof Anil Gupta. The prof is a renowned for his social work and runs his own NGOs as well. The intent of the course is to sensitize the students to the harsh realities of our country and to come with some creative solutions after having brainstorming discussions. This year, the destination was Sikkim and I was ready to bid any no. of points to book the course for me :)

To be honest, the primary reason that motivated me to sign up for this course was the fact that it would provide me an opportunity to go on a good trek to a beautiful place with my friends and have fun.

There were two more big reasons which convinced me of sacrificing my chance to go home in the holidays and instead opt for this course. The first was that I wanted to spend some quality time with myself. The first year had been extremely hectic and I realized that I was so engrossed in daily routine and pursuits and trying to maintain my social relations that I was starting to lose track of time and in the process, distancing myself from my heartfelt aspirations and feelings. I needed some peaceful time with myself and introspect on what have I been doing and how I need to go ahead in my life, clearly prioritizing my needs and time. The second reason was that I realized this would be a unique opportunity for me to get close to the rustic life of the hills and put myself in the shoes of those who have not been so lucky in life as I.

We all met at the Delhi airport, armed with our rucksacks and sleeping bags, and the enthusiasm on our faces was for everyone to see. The flight to Bagdogra was 3hr 45 min long as it went via Guwahati, making it the longest I have ever flown at a stretch. But it was a most entertaining journey, with all of us playing various games on board, much to the chagrin of the flight attendants! We hired taxis to take us to SMIT, an engg college which was supposed to be our base camp from where we would start our ascent.

We climbed around 20 odd kms every day for the next 5 days. We would take the jungle routes and the all the other paths that cut across the beautiful step farms and mountains but avoid the road as much as possible. Our luggage and food supplies were carried by two vehicles. We all would start together in the mornings, we climbing through the trek trails while the cars took the road. By lunch time, the vehicles would have stopped at a mid way place and cooked food for us. We would reach hungry and tired, quickly eat the food, rest for 10 min and then move on. The tiredness, hunger and the serene surroundings made that break a great moment to look forward to. On our way, we would stop by to meet farmers, workers, school kids and talk to all of them, understanding their work, life and culture. Our trek for the day would end by late evening, when we would reach a small village, where we hired a couple of rooms in a local school. We would clean the rooms and then set our sleeping bags on the floor, ready in a moment for the night ahead. Post dinner, we used to have some meaningful discussions with the prof about whatever we learnt throughout the day and discuss some innovative solutions to the problems these villagers faced. And then the next day, the same routine would continue.

SY is not an easy course to take. I have been a sportsman since long and hence was confident about my abilities to complete the trek without any problems. But honestly speaking, at the beginning, I wasn’t sure if all the members in our group will be able to do the same. Climbing 20 kms everyday through the treacherous trekking trails was an arduous task. I remember how in the night, being the thinnest in the group, I would walk on the legs of my pals to act as the official massager of the group! We were quite tired of the same food that we had everyday but the options in the villages in the night were not too great and hence the foodies in the group had a tough time ! The places where stayed in the night were just the bare minimum. Two rooms in a village school and that’s it. There were couple of toilets but u can imagine the plight with 30 people wanting to use them every morning ! And last but not the least, the constant threat of leeches! Nearly half of us fell victim to those blood suckers so much so that it slowly was no big deal for us as were always ready with salt in our pockets! The crux is that it was physically a pretty tough course. You must be prepared to rough it out.

But what still made it probably the best course for most of us? The same usual IIMA spirit! I was simply amazed on the very first day itself when we had to climb the longest through the toughest possible route. I remember at one place, we had to hang with the support of a root in order to cross a chasm. One slip of hand and we would have been hurling down the mountain! By the time we reached our school, it was dark with no street lights and no torches. But the camaraderie and team spirit left me amazed. We all kept on helping each other, singing songs, motivating each other all the while. There were lots of girls who surprised all of us with their stamina and spirit. It was tough for them and we could see that. But never for a second did they give up and continued their march in great spirit. Everyone used to get exhausted at the end of the day. But the fun we had on the way and in the night before sleeping was what that made the trip so worthwhile J I remember one of the schools we stayed at had wooden rooms with no electricity! And it was pouring cats and dogs in the night. What fun it was! The sound of raindrops on the wood, with all of us cuddled in our sleeping bags, chatting and having fun as the candle night burnt its way out….

The other great thing abt the trip was that we made a lot of new friends. Not everyone of us knew every other person in the group very well since we were from diff sections in the first year. But during the daily treks, we would often split in smaller groups and chat along the way, thus getting to know each other much better. I came to know that TJ is a sports freak and very warm and caring at heart, that Vidya is a very sweet girl who will do anything for her friends and that bakarr is an extremely down to earth guy, notwithstanding the big I-Banks that queue up for him during placements. We all would talk and giggle when the lights would go out in the night, rush to get salt when there was a leech attack and keep motivating others during those arduous climbs.

The trekking period was actually awesome for me. Walk in the absolute beautiful serene surroundings of Sikkim with friends, sharing ur feelings with them, stopping by to chat with the locals, offering candies to the kids and clicking snaps with them….it was blissful ! In the nights, we would sneak out to the local market to get something good to eat. And we would end being the biggest consumers of “Wai-Wai” noodles, a specialty in that area !

The last day held a surprise for us. At the end of the trek, we checked into a govt guest house and sleeping on beds in a proper place was a welcome break :) After lunch, the prof handed us the surprise. We were all to scatter away individually in the village and pick up a spot for ourselves. We were then supposed to remain silent for nearly 4 hours and introspect on our trip and our lives. For me, it was a great time! I ventured out on the outskirts of the village and found a spot, perched up high on the mountain, overlooking beautiful valleys. It was such a peaceful place with nice chilly winds blowing on my face that I could for the first time understand how our saints could meditate in the peace of the Himalayas. But this little exercise of our group turned out to be a fuuny and eccentric happening for the villagers! They simply couldn’t fathom what these bunch of people are doing, scattered all around and not talking at all for 4 full hours ! few kids came and tried to talk to me as well…..I just gave them some biscuits and chips and after some time, did talk to them at the end of my “maun vrat”.

The final night at SMIT was a formal affair with couple of ministers in the Sikkim Govt cabinet coming down to meet us. We first made a small presentation to them about our observations over the past week and some recommendations from whatever knowledge we gained. This was followed by dinner where we got to interact with them personally, learning much more about the govt’s perspective on the issues we brought up.

Just when we thought there couldn’t possibly be any more excitement in store for us, we were given a rude awakening during our way back to the airport. One of our taxis had a head-on collision with another vehicle on a narrow road having mountain and valley on its either sides. Luckily for us, we escaped with minor bruises but the other vehicle had its windscreen shattered and couple of seriously injured people! What a shock it was for us. We were all shaken but were quick to recover and thank our stars!

Shodh Yatra was clearly one of the best things that happened to me during my tenure at IIM-A. I am ever so thankful to the institute for hosting a course like this. A great trek through the pristine beauty of Sikkim, with the pure river teesta on one hand and the gorgeous mountains on the other, , roughing it out in adverse conditions, making new friends, having great fun together and getting a chance to get close with the lives of the locals…….I could not have asked for more ! The bonds that I forged during the trip have only strengthened since then. With a brilliantly designed Shodh yatra T-Shirt as a memento, the memories of the experience and the ties with my friends are sure to live inside me for years to come.

Second Year begins....

2007-09-07T10:39:00.000+05:30

So you must be wondering why has this blog not been updated for so long…Was the 4th term so hectic that it didn’t give me any time at all? Well, on the contrary, the only reason I can think of for not writing for so long is…Laziness ! Period.

The first term of the second year fulfilled what I wanted it to be…the most chill term of my existence at IIMA so far. I had only heard about what tuchchadom is and when it was the time to experience it, I can tell you, there no greater bliss than this J The thing is that if you isolate the term from the first year completely and look at it independently, its still not so chill. You are actually still supposed to study, prepare for classes, give exams etc. However, with the academic hell that we have gone through in the first year, this study now seemed like peanuts. We were told that first year at IIMA will turn you into steel where nothing ever in life could faze you. After successfully undergoing that transition for one long year, now the time was ours ! Here came the second year with all its glory and enticement to enjoy life for one full year as much as we could, before we get back to the drudgery of everyday professional office life.

So why exactly is second year so chill compared to the first year, and why does tuchchadom imply freedom from all academic worries and the time to unwind and pursue all you wanted to ? (apart from the muggu junta, who will mug even when the heavens are falling !) And what exactly so we did then in the 4th term ? Let me answer all these one by one.

First the academic part. In IIMs, there is no speacialization. We are not MBA Finance/Mktg whatever after we pass out. We are given general management diplomas. There’s a plethora of subjects on offer in the second year in varied fields and we are free to chose subjects from whichever field we want to. We just have to stick to the minimum credit requirements in each term, which mostly translates that people usually take 15 credits (subjects) in the entire year. The break up amongst the three terms is usually either 6,5,4 or 5,6,4. In my case, it was the later, I took 5 courses in the 4th term. Out of which, one was an offsite course called Shodh Yatra, which essentially was a trek to sikkim and about which I will talk in my next blog entry. So that leaves 4 courses. Out of that, one course called Managing Negotiations lasted for just 8 days and had no exams ! So that leaves 3 courses. These were Infrastructure Development and Financing, Strategy Formulation and Implementation, Consumer Behaviour. Out of these, CB started only post mid term. So as you can see, my time table was not exactly what you will call, Hectic J Another thing, if you see my subjects, apart from CB, none of them were focused on one particular field. And that’s what I love about this place. I am free not to be bound by stereotypes and can actually learn any general management subject that I want to. And in my all 3 terms now, I plan to mix subjects from all fields, even including Philosophy, which I will talk about later !

So effectively, my academic load was zilch to say the least, compared to what I had in the first year. But I had purposely chosen subjects that will not give me much pain in this term. I have taken a bit more painful subjects in the 5th term, but I wanted to reserve the 4th term for basically recuperating from the strains of the first year and hence jyst enjoying myself to the hilt !

The one interesting thing that we did academically was our IDF project. We did a project on the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, which is currently one of the biggest things happening on the Infrastructure front in the country. In one sentence, it involves reducing the width of the river Sabarmati and using the reclaimed land to build beautiful public and commercial spaces. The end result would actually change the very face of this city. The best thing about this project was the insights gained from the primary interviews that we had. We spent huge time and effort in meeting with almost all stakeholders involved, including AMC’s Deputy Commissioner, the architects and even the slum dwellers who are going to be relocated. The end result was a comprehensive report of which the group was really proud of, basically due to the huge first hand information that we had gained. It surely was the best project I had been a part of so far in this institute,.
We had actually taken an exchange student from the US in our study group and the experience was rewarding. She was very senior to us, in fact she was serving the US Army ! She was here doing a Public Policy Programme and had taken IDF as one of her subjects. The insights that we gained from her were phenomenal. More than that, she was the motivating factor behind the group. After the first year, the enthu levels of the group in tuchchadom were not really what I would term as ‘great’ J But she ensured that we are on our toes on this project and this project wouldn’t have been what it came out to be without her !

So, what did we do in the term if we didn’t study so much ? Ha ha ha, million dollar question ! On a typical day, I would go to the gym in the morning (ya, I know, getting up was a pain but I somehow managed, coz the gym would be full in the evenings) as my classes started only late in the mornings. After having a leisurely breakfast (another first at IIMA for me J), I would come back to the room, read the newspaper, get ready for the classes and leave. Classes would get over by the afternoon, except CB which took place in the evening. In the remaining time, I would usually explore new eating joints in Ahmedabad, roam around on my bike with friends, play cricket/badminton/TT and watch movies on my comp. Oh ya, and try to squeeze in some studies in between, if mood permits J So you see, now you can understand why I didn’t get time to write this blog..ha ha ha !

The distinction can be summarized in one line. In the first year I slept late coz I was mugging. In the second year I sleep late coz I am either playing cricket or watching movies J

The institute was abuzz with activities as usual that kept people on their toes even without any academic load. Lots of sports events were organized between fachchas and tuchchas so as to help reduce the stress levels of the fachchas as well as spot the talented ones. The tuchcas beat the fachchas overall but almost every match was a close affair. Thanks heaven we finally won cricket ! First time my team won in this institute J By the way, I thought that my TT days were over when I came here last year as I didn’t play here at all. But surprisingly, I didn’t lose all my touch as I came 3rd in a TT tournament organized this term, open for all, with nearly 50 of us participating. I hope to continue to play regularly now. The drama club of IIMA put up a 2 hour play which was very neatly done and appreciated by all. The dance club put up a show as well, displaying the best dancers we have and making us realize that these guys were simply awesome ! Not to be left behind, the Music club organized the fachcha welcome night where they performed more than 25 numbers, ranging from Western Rock to Indian Rap ! A mindblowing performance it was. The guitarists, drummers and vocalists looked as if they have come straight out of some international band ! I tell you, the talent pool at this place just keeps on getting bigger with every incoming batch !

So as you can see, the term was full of fun, masti and exciterment. It kept all of us busy with out respective club activities, but there was no dearth of enjoyment. We even went for a bike trip to a nearby bird sanctuary J

That’s how the second year is. If you want, you can mug your way through. Else, you can chose a couple of serious subjects where you put good effort and freak out and enjoy rest of the time, an option most of us including me take !

But all this enjoyment has not come for free. All of us have earned every bit of it by going through hell in the first year. And hence we all deserve this time now. For the fachchas reading this. hang on and keep your heads high…good times are to follow. But for now, all I can say is : Muggo Fachchon Muggo…Guhahahaha !!

The Third Term

2007-06-10T00:32:00.000+05:30

The third term is known to be a cousin brother of the first one in terms of academic load.

Operations Management is back, in the form of OM II, and is arguably the toughest subject of the first year. OM and MANAC were the toughest ones in the first term and if we thought that OM I was bad, then we had seen nothing. Coz OM II is known to be the nemesis of a lot many. However, two things went well with this subject. One, the subject was pretty interesting. With concepts like Queuing theory, Inventory Mgmt etc, backed by fundoo cases, the learning just kept getting richer. Second, our OM prof was one of the best I have ever seen in my life. IIMA has some great profs but this one is simply out of this world. Witty, Succinct and Imaginative, he would easily put himself in our shoes and hence was very easy to relate to. I am tempted to write so much more about the novel ways by which he teaches but this is not the right place. And ya, by the way, the final exam paper of OM II was such a bouncer that it does full justice to the “toughest subject” tag this subject has.

Finance II is the next in line. Am sure many of my batchmates would not agree with me and I respect that. But for people like me who are not too enthu about finance, this is the other toughie in the third term. The problem was that there was no set pattern. The cases were so weird and arbit. And the exams were as expected…..all bouncers J

Apart from the above two, there was WAC back in action. This time, we had 3 reports to be submitted, one individual, and the others in groups of two and four resp. And that meant that few of the Saturdays were doomed to be disastrous J

The highlight of this term, and also the reason why its known to be super hectic is the huge amount of group work. The study group really comes alive in the true sense in this term. Every subject has loads of assignments. Projects, class presentations and what not that need to be submitted as a group. Which meant that long hours were spent in one of our rooms, working on the next submission. I still remember the long nights that we would spend in my room, working on the lappy, brainstorming, discussing the latest movie, talking about girl friends and the list is endless. You see, no group meeting would be complete without our usual regular digressions !!

In between the academic load came few sporting activities, which further took a lot out of my time. “Yalgaar” is a fachcha-tuchcha sports meet that went for about 10 days and proved to be lots of fun. The event ended in a draw but generated good interest. Then there was the Inter-Dorm cricket tournament that is again a regular annual feature. It’s a knockout tourney that takes place on the basketball court late in the night under lights. It’s a very prestigious event with the reputation of each dorm at stake. And hence the passion this event generated was beyond imagination. Every match was followed by a detailed performance report that would be posted on our internal NB just minutes later, thus spreading the enthu to even all those who could not be there on court.

So all in all, the term indeed proved to be stressful to some extent, with so many activities taking place one after the other. And once the exams got over, the joy on everyone’s face was for all to see. The grueling first year, the toughest one year of our lives for most of us, was finally behind us. We could close our eyes, look back on those demanding days and smile with satisfaction. Yes, we had done it !! What lies ahead are the blissful days of being a tuchcha. That life, which we all have been envying for one year as a fachcha, now beckons us J And how eager each one of us is to come back to campus in a totally new avatar. We all deserve it and am so glad our time has finally come !

Everyone pushed off for their summer internship just a few days after the exams. I moved to Bombay. What happened during these two months is something I will not cover here. I will be back as a proud tuchcha now. And this blog will now see life at IIMA from a completely new perspective J

An year has passed by….time flies…hardships come and go…friendships grow stronger…a whole new world emerges……and I already feel richer without even earning a penny !

Elections

2007-06-09T00:23:00.000+05:30

All through my life, I had held various positions of responsibilities. School head boy, house captain, class monitor, Gen Sec…….but all of them were linked through one common thread : They were all selected positions, not elected. I had never ever stood in an election. And hence when the time came for the election of the Students Affairs Council (SAC) secretaries, my eyes lit up. I knew here is another chance for me to do something which I had never done before; IIMA is going to give me another first in my life !

The SAC consists of 8 secretaries representing diverse spheres of activities, namely Recruitment, Cultural, Sports, Acads, Media, IT, Mess and the Gen Sec himself. Once I made up my mind to stand for the elections, the next decision was not very tough. There was no doubt in my mind that I will contest for the post of Sports Secy. Sports is a field about which I have always been very passionate. And I had strong opinions about how the sports infrastructure and opportunities at the institute could be made better. After the Sangharsh victory, I knew that there is no dearth of sporting talent at IIMA. And despite the huge academic load, people do take out time to indulge in their fav sports. All this was motivation enough for me to apply for this post.

Application submitted, the real test then began. I can say with confidence that the next few days were the most hectic and tough days for me in the third term, except for the time I spent working for Chaos. And since there was not much gap between Chaos and the elections, I was on my toes for almost the entire first month of the third term. And all this does not include the long hours that needed to be put in for academics, which was in some ways first term revisited. Anyways, I will come to that in my next post.

So why was this period crazily hectic ? ok, so here it goes ! After filing our candidature, the next step was to come up with an election manifesto that needed to be uploaded by a certain deadline to our central server. I had to spend considerable time on preparing the same since each and every point written there would later on be scrutinized by everyone. Once this was done, the next step was Campaigning – the most hectic period. I had prepared a 10 min pitch highlighting the central areas of action that I would act upon if selected. Campaigning did not mean the “Vote for Vinz” slogans ! Neither did it mean explaining to people why you are the best candidate for the post. All it meant was to put forth your agenda of what you intend to do for the students and the institute if selected.

Now, the aim was to ensure that all fellow fachchas (only fellow batchmates are allowed to vote; not the seniors) have heard my pitch. This in turn implied that I had to go to each of the 23 dorms and catch hold of as many people as I could and pitch to them. Since its practically impossible to find everyone in the dorm at the same time, I had to keep track who I have missed out and make repeat trips to those dorms. All this meant that every day, till the end of campaign time, I had to make multiple visits to all dorms to deliver my pitch. I had to compromise on my studies and group work and 24 hours started to seem less. But this was not my story alone. Every candidate for every post had to undergo the same routine. Just imagine the plight of poor batchmates !! They had to listen to the pitches of 25 odd candidates day in and day out and towards the end, it seemed that all that the people on campus were doing was either delivering pitches or listening to them! Some dorms even went a bit whacky as they put down “pitching rules” on the dorm blackboards: 5 min or less, all votes guaranteed; 5-10 min, few less votes and so on ! ha ha ha……I can understand how tiring it was for them. I remember in the end how I would literary drag people out of their rooms to listen to the pitch J

Anyways, once the campaigning time was over, the last step before voting was the “Soap Box”. It takes place in a classroom where every candidate appears before an audience (comprising of fachchas as well as tuchchas), delivers the pitch and then answers sharp and probing questions thrown at him/her. The entire event is video recorded and essentially measures how well the candidate is prepared for the post and whether he/she can withstand pressure and maintain calm while answering challenging questions. The Soap Box is intended to help the voters make a much more informed decision. Mine went quite decent I suppose, I was able to answer almost all questions thrown at me satisfactorily.

And finally the D-Day arrived ! Voting started in the evening. Turnout was nearly cent percent and after 2-3 hours, counting began for each post. I remember how we all were gathered outside the classroom, chatting with each other, trying to quell our anxieties ! After every 15-20 min, one result would be announced – cheers, jubilations and of course, bumps would follow ! And then it was the turn of Sports ! My fellow candidate was a strong favourite, and deservedly so. He is one of the best sportsman on campus and has good experience in handling such posts in the past. But somehow I felt confident inside and waited with bated breath ! 20 min of agonizing wait, and the results were finally out. I was beaten quite comfortably. It took time to sink in. I at least expected the margin of defeat to be very narrow. Alas, that was not to be.

But I was happy for him. I had no regrets in losing out to a person who completely deserved the victory. His passion, commitment and humbleness are his biggest strengths and I was sure the post has gone into the right hands. I got reminded of a statement one of my friends had made prior to the voting : “Irrespective of who wins, we know that Sports at IIMA would be in safe hands”. It was an honour for both of us.

I was selected to the Sports committee later on and now it is indeed a great pleasure and experience to work with the team together. We have already hosted few events in the third term and will be working out on plans for the coming year.

The elections were a great experience. The frenetic pace at which I had to work was killing, but it was once in a lifetime moment. I made friends with so many more people in my batch; that was one of the biggest gains. The highs and lows have etched themselves as yet another unforgettable experience of my life at IIMA.

Chaos 2007

2007-05-13T01:49:00.000+05:30

I could no longer let this blog die. The guilt of not updating it during the entire third term has become over powering now. Its not that I didn’t get time; in fact I had plenty of that. It was just that I had become too lazy J But anyways, now that I am back, over the next few posts, I am gonna lay down what transpired during the third phase of the fachcha life at IIM-A.

The term started in Jan 2 week. We were all fresh and raring to go. The reason? Well, this was the last term of the bondage called fachchadom ! Our only motivation to survive this last phase was that after this, we will be the kings of WIMWI J. The tuchchas had warned us that this is not at all like the second term. In fact, its pretty much like the first term revisited. WAC was back, so was Operations. And add to that Finance-2 and you can rest assured that the term is gonna be killing. And what makes it worse is that the amount of group work is huge. But along with all this, theres lots of non-acads stuff that happens and thus if u r enthu, usure will have a blast !Well, as the term got on, we got a hang of what the tuchchas meant !

I will go into the acads part and the strains of excessive group work in the next post. Coz I reserve this one for CHAOS ! Yeah, the annual cultural extravaganza of IIM-A. Chaos lasts for 4 nights and 3 days. Its an inter college cultural fest that consists of various competitions, fun games and hosts eating stalls and what not. So all in all, it’s a fun place to be in J All this happens in the day time and after 6pm takes place something called as a celebrity night where music bands perform for a huge audience. Each of the 4 nights see different music stars take the centre stage. Unlike confluence, Chaos is not restricted to only B-schools. It attracts colleges from all streams all across the country, which essentially implies its much more fun J But the purpose both conflu and chaos is entirely different and hence any comparison is not justified.

Anyways, so I was a part of the Admin team of chaos. We were essentially responsible for 2 things. One was the tickets and other was the admin helpdesk that is put up during the event. However, there was a lot of overlap with the publicity team and hence we also ended up doing a bit of publicity work as well. Chaos hosted about 30000 to 35000 people last year and hence all functions related to the tickets sale were very crucial and exciting as well. We had decided to put holograms as well as serial nos on each ticket that classified them into different type. This work was not outsourced to a vendor for some reasons. And hence few days before the sale started, the entire admin team with help from some other team fachchas would sit in the night and put get the tickets ready. Oh boy, what nights they were. We all would sit in the common area in the dorm with the TV on, and chat with each other along with the work. And then we would pester the tuchchas and actually threaten to stop work till they got us something to eat from CT J All in all, those were tiring, sleepless but fun nights.

But the tiring nights didn’t end there. We had to put fliers in Times of India as a part of the publicity plan. The work was outsourced to the appropriate guys but we still had to be there to ensure that its executed properly. And hence there I was, sometimes with couple of teammates, at times alone, from 3 in the night to 5 in the morning, at the newspaper distribution hub in Ahmedabad, ensuring that those guys properly put all the Chaos fliers in the news papers. oh man ! wat an experience that was J I witnessed the entire process of what happens when the news papers arrive at 3 am and are distributed to various vendors. It happened at one of the main roads in Ahmedabad. The footpaths would be full of paperwalas putting various fliers in the papers, separating the papers for diff localities and finally trudging them along on cycles and scooters. There would be so much of commotion in the wee hours of the morning. It was fascinating to see the kind of intense work that goes behind the scenes to ensure that we get our morning newspapers right when we get up from sleep !
Then we would take turns and sit at the tickets counter on campus. We were selling tickets through CCD and Dominoes outlets. So 4 of the CCDs were under my charge. Hence I had to visit them to put our banners etc. and then visit them frequently to collect the tickets sale money. The entire prep for the event was tiring but fun. It was very diff from the work I did for conflu. This involved more out of campus trips and interactions with vendors.

Chaos started on the eve of 25th Jan with a classical music function followed by a sweedish band that played fusion stuff. It was really awesome and perhaps the best performance of Chaos. What followed in the next 4 days was pure masti with stars like Junoon, Remo and Silk Route gracing the evenings and events/worksops/contests ranging from photography to pot making to self grooming during the daytime personally for me, it was a super hectic time coz managing such a huge crowd and coordinating the plethora of events across 4 days was a huge challenge for the entire chaos team. I used to just got to my room I the night to sleep for few hours and would be back early next morning. Reminded me of the conflu days !! My room would be in total mess J But it was great fun and completely new experience for me right in the beginning of the third term.

Another one of the times when I realized that life at this place truly rocks. I just wanted to savour each and every moment, be it standing at the newspaper vendor at 3 am or dancing to the band performances; I knew these would be the golden times of my life that I would cherish forever. Chaos got over on 28th night. And after all the hungama, the grueling 3rd term was staring at us, reminding us of the stressful 1st term and ready to show us again why the first year of IIMA makes you as tough as steel !

So how did we cope up ? How was it different from the first term ? Did OM and Fin haunt us as MANAC did in the previous 2 terms ? And apart from Chaos, did we have any more fun in this last term ? All this and more coming up soon J

My Study Group

2007-01-08T20:53:00.000+05:30

You know what one of the best things about this place is….Well, ya, the profs are great, so is the infrastructure…..but what truly amazes me are the people here !!! Yep, me talking about my batch mates. With the entire batch being divided into 4 sections, you really don’t get to know everyone closely. The people you interact with the most are your study group mates, your dorm mates and your section mates. In the first term, the study groups were formed by the PGP office. However, in further terms, one was free to chose the group one wanted to. My group initially was a five member group, including me and in the second term, another guy joined us.

Let me start with the lady first. She also happens to be the CR of our class. A commerce graduate from Chennai. Worked for a couple of years before coming here. One of the few girls (or perhaps the only) in the country to have converted all 6 IIMs. A very confident and no-nonsense girl, who is never afraid to speak her mind. Being the CR is not an easy job and she has handled the post extremely well so far. A very caring person at heart and a great pal to hang around with, she is a great team player, always willing to shoulder responsibilities. In fact, she sorts of binds our group together when we at times get lax and brings us back on track.

Next is a guy from IIIT Hyderabad. A 99.99 percentiler with a keen knack in finanace, I-Banks are where he belongs to and am so gald that’s where he is heading for in his summers. A topper during his earlier years, he is one scholar with a high ambition and is certainly a person to go to when all the finance and accounts jargon goes above your head. A person who is always enthu to discuss and debate about any topic under the sun and is also candid enough to accept views contrary to his.

Then comes this musical bond from IIT kgp. An exceptional piano/guitar player, he sure set the stage alive by his performances during the T-Nites. And had he not been at WIMWI, I am sure some rock band or the other would have welcomed him with open arms. With his boyish charms and cool persona, he sure is one fun guy to hang out with. One of the toppers of the ABM course, but a very down to earth personality, he sure does rock. Soemone you are always at ease with.

This guy is one of those different and controversial persons you at times meet. A Mech engg, he is the senior most person in the group with a 4 odd years experience at a huge automobile company. And the insight he brings into discussions coz of this experience is immense. I said controversial as lots of his ideas and analysis are out of the box and revolutionary, that often create a stir and sound weird but are often very insightful. I am amazed by his GK, right from Metallica to Russian Revolution….and none of us could match the number of hours he spents with books in the first term, he hardly would sleep I guess.

Last, but certainly not the least, is this don from IIT Delhi. He joined our group in the second term and boy, were we lucky or what !! With an enriching work ex in an infrastructure major, he is in the race to be one of the I-Schols at WIMWI (That’s what the toppers are called here, Industry Scholars) But the best thing is that he is not at all the mugging kinds. He is sleeping everytime u call him and still ends up getting A’s in every subject. A very caring person at heart, a jolly self at parties and a good sportsman ( I could hardly pick his service in TT the first time I played himJ ), he sure is one of the most talented persons I have met. And yeah, he is god at report writing, getting A in WAC is no kids play. A great team player, compromising and understanding.

We all have a great time whenever we have group meets. I agree, we often do actual constructive work for less than 30-40 % of the time and the rest of the time is spent in discussing and chatting about anything under the sun, right from who our first crushes were to whether Bombay is better or Delhi !! But that’s the whole fun. That’s what keep us going as group. Thats what ensures we all are at complete ease with each other and consequently, not only do well as a study group, but also make pals for a lifetime.It’s a super experience to spend so much time with such an awesome bunch of people. They all are so diverse, so talented, so intelligent, so assiduous, yet so caring , so much fun, helpful and down to earth. Every single moment I spend with them is a time for immense learning for me. There’s always something new to learn and enjoy being in such great company, and that’s what makes WIMWI so very special !

2nd term is over

2007-01-01T23:59:00.000+05:30

Here I am, in pune, sitting in the closed confines of my comfortable abode. But you know what, this time I will be kind of eager to go back to campus. And that’s primarily coz of how the 2nd term went by.

It was pretty much unlike how the first term was. We had lesser number of subjects this term. So yes, the load was slightly less. Before the mid terms, we were busy in summer placements preparation. So many presentations, so many versions of the CV…but all that was kind of fun, better than sitting and mugging for the subjects at least. Post mid term, placements started and there was a break of about 10 days from the classes. After that, confluence happened that again took 3-4 days. And by the time it ended, we had started to enjoy the surprisingly lesser load that we had. We had more time to spend on things apart from academics now. Mind you though, the load was still very much there. In fact, at one point in time, we had 7 quizzes in 10 days. However, compared to what we had been through in the first term, this was much better. We had inter section sports going on, lots of parties and treats, club activities and what not ! We all had become very accustomed to the academic load and could now manage our time to do lots of extra stuff. I still remember one weekend, where we had a Saturday off, the only Saturday in the term where we had an off. On Friday night, I played, watched movies and slept early. Got up late on Saturday morning, went out of campus with a friend, came back late, had a party with my group mates, again went out for dinner with all of them, came back late in the night, surfed the net and slept well late into Sunday morning. Agreed, Sunday was spent in doing a marketing assignment, but the way I spent the weekend really thrilled me and I cherished it a lot.

So essentially, we were pretty much chilled out this term. People spent time in watching movies, playing, going out with friends, or simple plain old sleeping !!! But whatever it was, it was a good break from the regular acads. And probably that’s why we were in a fix at the time of end-terms when we realized theres lots of catching up to do. But from our experience, I guess we all managed that pretty well in the end too. So all in all, a great term where at least I enjoyed being in WIMWI a lot.

It was a special term in some aspects. One being that finally MANAC (Management Accounting) is over ! Yahooooo…..No longer will we have to see the dreaded MANAC quiz notice on that dreaded quiz notice board. The only time we will see MANAC quiz notice again will be when the next fachchas are here and we will be the kings. Ha ha ha !!!!! The term also had ISPE, a subject about Indian Social and Political environment, where we were sensitized to the society we live in and where we all did projects that would in some way or the other help the society and the under-privileged. We also had some great insightful debates in the ISPE classes about sensitive topics and the passion involved was for everyone to see. We were taught Marketing by a prof who has co-authored the famous Kotler book and needless to say, all his lectures are simply god level. We were taught Spoken Business Communication pre mid term where our presentations were video recorded at the end to make us realize we are not really the studs that we think we are !!!

They say the third term is equally tough as the first one and after the chill 2nd term, we all are gonna face a super stressful time again. But I am enjoying WIMWI thoroughly and am ready for anything to come at me now. As they say, Bring ‘em on !!!!

Confluence 2006

2006-12-31T13:40:00.000+05:30

This was long overdue but I guess I was just too lazy…..Now that am back home for our 2nd term-end break, there’s lots of catching up to do !!!

Confluence is the annual international B-School summit of IIM-A. I had heard it’s a huge scale event but it was only when we actually started preparing for the event and during those actual 3 days that I realized its true magnitude. The event is managed by a number of teams, each consisting of a mixture of tuchchas and fachchas. The fachchas were recruited into the team in the first term itself, even when the event was to take place in the last week of November. I was in the domestic team and thus our work had started much before the actual event got underway. My team was responsible for sending invitations to all the colleges and then actually taking care of their stay and queries once they were on campus.

November was truly hectic in some sense. First, it was our mid term exams. Once they got over, after 3 days the placements started and once they got over, after another 4-5 days Confluence started. A domestic registration desk had been set up at LKP and it was the nerve centre of all the activities taking place during the 3 days of the summit. Right from checking-in the teams who got on campus to the announcements of results to the distribution of freebies, it was a one stop shop for all information. And hence it was essential that most of the domestic team members remain in the stall for as long as possible. And that’s what precisely happened with me. For all the three days, I used to be at the desk nearly the entire time and once they day was over, we all used to sit and do the wrapping up of data and get the desk ready for the next day. So basically u can say that there was hardly any sleep for those 3 days. Get up early, come to the desk, be there or do other conflu related work the entire day, get back to the room at abt 12-1, crash on the bed and the next day the entire cycle repeats J

But you know what, those three days were damn good fun despite all the work. Though I did not get to attend any of the seminars/lectures/workshops/competitions (and some of them I really wanted to), I really didn’t have much regrets. Coz the whole experience of being at the desk and managing the thousands of queries of teams and participants and guests was something special indeed. The entire domestic team bonded very well and we all had become very good friends, despite the fact that we were from different sections and had hardly known each other before we got together as a team. That’s the beauty of this place. Even though your daily interaction is limited to people from your section or your dorms, since you are a part of different teams/clubs, you get to know so many people and make friends with them.

Yes there were stressful times as well. You always don’t have all the information with you and when so many people ask u consistently for that information, things get a bit uncomfortable. You have to ensure that u remain ur calm throughout and that the guests leave the place with a good impression of the entire event. Multitasking was at its peak, with so much information about small details entrenched in ur memory throughout. But all that was not only a challenge, but also good fun. I made so many new friends from so many other colleges. You talk to them, get to know how things go about in their colleges, learn from their experiences, get their feedback on the event and then ya, I will be honest, it sure does feel nice when u hear them praise the institute and the professionalism with which the entire summit has been handled.

And actually when I sit and look back, yeah, they were right. It was a huge event with nearly a thousand participants I guess, not to mention people who just came to attend seminars and to get a general feel of a B-School festival. And it did in the end go pretty well I guess. No major goof ups, things were smooth in general and almost all the teams I interacted with were appreciative of the way the event progressed. Hats off to our tuchchas led by Arjun Balan, the confluence coordinator, who all worked day and night for so long to pull off an event of this huge scale successfully.

There were lots of eminent personalities who delivered lectures. All the details of the event are available on the website and hence I won’t go into those details here. And once the summit officially got over after the quiz contest, which was the last event, the celebrations began. Starting with the Confluence Tempo shout at the auditorium to the Ramp party organized for absolutely everyone on campus, it was a night of fun for most of the people. The dance party saw mostly the participating teams letting their hair loose and enjoying themselves thoroughly along with the confluence team members, who finally could smile after pulling off a successful event. Yes, there were not many fachchas/tuchchas who were present, but I guess that had to do with the tiredness that had engulfed everyone after 3 hectic days of buzzing activities.

All in all, a truly amazing experience. My first ever of such a kind. To be a part of Asia’s largest B-School summit and to get a first hand experience of being in the thick of action was fun and learning going hand in hand. After Sangharsh and placements, this was the the third thing that made this term a truly unique one. This place never ceases to keep u on ur toes and give u experiences of a lifetime. WIMWI Rocks !!!

And now being in the Admin team of Chaos, our cultural festival in jan last week, I can already feel an encore of a different kind J

Trsyt With Alyque Padamsee

2006-12-09T03:48:00.000+05:30

"Buland Bharat ki Buland Tasveer........Hamara Bajaj" !!

Does the jingle ring a bell somewhere ?? It would be tough to find someone who woudnt have lived his years without listening to this evergreen tagline and the familiar music that goes with it.

Though I am supposed to write about Confluence, it would come a bit later as I couldnt help penning down todays experience lest it fades away in my meory !

We students had the opportunity to listen and interect with the ad guru of India, who not only was the mastermind of the above but has created such powerful advertisements and taglines that have etched in the memory of millions across the country for years together !!

Alyque Padamsee was here today to share his mind and enrich us with his insights !!!

For the uninitiated, this is the man who has created some of the most enduring, catchy and everlasting advertisements Indian television has ever witnessed. No wonder he is knows as the advertisement guru of the country.

He explained the circumstances and creatives that went into coming up with these ads. He dissected the ads and we soon realized their relevance as well as the huge role they played in building brands. Brands, that have become household name, Brands that have at times become more powerful than the product itself and Brands that often thrive on the wonderfully briiliant marketing (advertising included) that bring life into them.

Hamara Bajaj, the Liril Girl, K-S and the more recent Fair and Handsome are some of his creations that redefined the way these products were perceived in the market and revolutionized the product as well as the market. He showed us clips of all these ads (trust me, it felt so wonderful to see the old and original bajaj and liril ads) and explained to us he dynamics and behind the scene creativity that went into making these ads the success they were.

He has a good sense of humour and that kept all of us in splits more often than not. His anecdotes from the tremendous experience he has in the advertising world, his expereinces at Lintas, his advertising agency were all too enriching for young budding marketers.

He did explain to us some of the basics of brand advertising, with a complete understanding of what an IDEA is and how it has the power to change the world. However simple it may sound, it proves to be the most tough thing when it comes to creating a unique ad that touches the customer.

I am not really interested in marketing, but the session was an experience in itself. After the lecture was over, he handed out few autographed books which got over in no time with the plethora of students making a beeline for them. The auditorium was filled with news reporters and photographers whi by now must have become so familiar with each nook and corner of IIMA.

I felt elated not only by learning I derived, but also by the fact that I had never dreamt that I would ever get a chance to see and listen face to face to big names and personalities and IIMA is offering me all these opportunites that make this place what it is ! Harsha Bhogale, Laloo, Nitish Kumar, Ajay Piramal, Naina Lal Kidwai, Sudha Murty...and all this is just the begining. With Chaos coming up soon, I can only see this list increasing further.

Sitaram Yechury, the CPM leader will deliver a lecture tomorrow at the RJM for all of us. It would be interesting to hear the left stand from the original source itself. I feel its going to be a chraged up atmosphere.

Whatever learning u get is completely upto you. But one thing is sure. It indeed does feel priveleged to have the opportunity to listen personally to big guns across various fields sharing their insights and intellects with us !!

WIMWI rocks indeed !!

Oh and yeah, if you think life is all fun here, think again. Today was the fourth consecutive quiz on the trot this week, discounting other stuff like presentatins, assignments, poster makings etc thst r regular supplements !!
And quizzes that.....well.....the lesser I talk abt them, the lesser pain they will cause me :)

Some things in WIMWI will never change !!! Ha ha ha…

Summer Placements

2006-11-28T15:00:00.000+05:30

Its been long since I have written. But life has been on a super highway this term. And thankfully, its not really the studies that have consumed most of our time so far :)

Summer Placements and Confluence were the two BIG things that have happened and I will share my thoughts on both in two seperate posts.

The run up to the summer placements had started long back. The companies had been coming on campus in hordes to give presentations and most of our time was spent in either attending the ppts or filling up the company forms. The seniors had been emphasizing the importance of summers since the time we joined WIMWI and I could see now why. Its perceived to be a BIG thing on campus and its very tough not to get caught in its aura. I firmly believe in the long run its ultimately the kind of work u r doing that matters but summers provide u a good platform and thats the reason their importance increases.

The mid terms got over and within the next 3 days, the placements were going to start ! It looked so weird. The entire campus was back to books even when the exams were over The tension was palpable. The shortlists kept on coming and the only topic of discussion when people met each other were the no. of shortlists they had received. The Investment-Banks and the Consults are the BIG companies for whom the first day of placements, Day zero, is reserved and everyone was eager to get as many day zero shortlists as possible.

Just a night before the D-Day, the dorm tuchchas called us dorm fachchas together. It was a morale boosting session and they tried their best to soothe our nerves. But everyone knew the stakes were high and we all knew how tiring the next few days could get, running around from one interview panel to the other.

The placement committee ( comprising of only tuchchas ) had given us presentations about how the entire placement process is going to run. This was going to be operationally a HUGE task. More than 250 students...more than 60-70 companies....All different interviews going on simultaneously....I had realized this would be tough to manage but had no idea it would be so so phenomenal till we all landed at the assigned destination on the D-Day, 7 in the morning, all decked up in suits.

The sight that greeted me was enough to make the fachchas go weak in the knees. There was a real huge banner (many stories tall) that read PLACEMENTS 2007, IIM-A that greeted everyone. We all entered into something known as the fachcha pool. This is nothing but a common room where all the fachcahs would be accomodated for the entire day and every person would go for his interview from there and come back there itself after the interview. The fachcha pool was a sight in itself. There was big control desk with phones ringing everywhere. The were walkie talkies all around. Compuetrs tracking every individual. The placecom members and some tuchchas volunteers roamed all around with their walkies, speaking agitatedly and apprising one another of the current status of the situation. Each company was given few rooms to conduct the interviews and was assigned a PR. The PRs, the placecom, the volunteers, the control desk...everybody worked in sync
using the walkies to ensure that the show runs smoothly. The placecom had worked mighty hard for the past few days. In fact, they had put up beddings in the placecom control room itslef and would sleep there only. Since each student had multiple interviews, it was very essential to keep track of every person at any time to direct him/her to various interviews. With so many companies conducting interviews at the same time, it was operationally a COLOSSAL requirement but the placecom were upto the challenge and were eager to make this thing a success.

After gaining our breath back, we all made oursleves comfortable in the fachcha pool. Apart from the control desk, all the notice boards in the room were stacked with the profiles of all the compaies that were conductong interviews that day, for a ready last minute reference to the candidates going for the interviews. There was a food stall whose coupons were abvailable in abundance. There was everything u could ask for to be comfortable and prepared for an interview.

And then it finally started !! The walkie crackled.....the first company had asked four candidates to proceed to the interview rooms. And lo behold !! I was one of them. Right upfront, 7 in the morning, first interviews of the placement process....within no time I was sitting in a comfy room, waiting for my interviewer. I am not going into the details of my interview here but all I can say is that I was selected by the company and thats is where I am heading for my summmers.

The day started on a great note for the batch as offers kept on pouring in right since the morning. There were smiling faces as people came back to the fachcha pool from their interviews and as the day progressed, we knew that we the batch is indeed gonna have a rocking placement. And as the day progressed, we also got to see the great placement procees machinery live in action. The walkies were always in action, cracking with instructions, names of candidates and an odd joke in midst of everything to keep calm things down. The efficiency with which the tuchchas worked amazed me and I could not help being awe stuck by the effective implementation of such a complicated process. These are the things that make this place the best and I could get a first hand experience of the same. Every small detail, every small requirement of companies were well thought of and things flowed smoothly.

The day ended with the OOPSing out ceremony. OOPS stands for Opting Out of Placement System. Every candidate is called to the placement control room and is told all the offers he has had. He choses one of them and then OOPSes out of the placements. He, thus is officially placed, and is not allowed to attend any further interview. He signs the form and is not supposed to go back to the fachcha pool....heads straight to the dorm !

All those who had been placed automatically become volunteers and help out in executing this elaborate proceess for the next few days till the entire batch gets placed. This was the time when we fachchas got a first hand experience of handling the affairs. I was the the control desk on one day and was the PR of a compnay another day. And I can vouch for the fact that the entire experience was awesome. To be the nerve centre of so many activites, it was multitasking at its peak. The entire placement process of day zero was replicated in the next few days till everypone got placed. At the end of every day, the night was spent in getting the system ready again for the next days work. Volunteers and PLacecom worked days and nights together to ensure that the enitre event is as smooth as possible. And they sure did an awesome job of it !!

The placement week was one of the most hectic after, perhaps the T-Nites. But it was an equally huge learning experience for everyone. Be it running from room to room attending myriad interviews or sloggin the entire night getting the logistics ready or handling the ire of companies when they do not get enough candidates to interview during certain times.....It was all something that will stay for me for long !

The placecom rocked, so did the volunteers and so did the entire batch for producing one of the gretest summer placements this institute has ever witnessed.

And i just sit back and go down the memory lane....those were times when my group struggled to find a company that would give us a summer project during engg days...our resumes were present in perhaps every IT company in Pune...and finally after 2 months we managed to get one project....
....And here I am...witnessing companies fighting over to get students...and companies who are the world leaders in their fields...Students making choices of whether to go to London or Hong Kong !

Times change...but everything comes at a price...So to all those reading in the papers about the awesome placements these WIMWI grads are getting and thinking how easy it is to get into the best companies once u r in IIMA, they do not realize the tremendous stress, effort, hard work that goes into surviving at this place.

I guess in the long run, summers or no summers, if u do not enjoy what u r doing, no amount of salary will make u happy. And if u love ur work, money not only ceases to be the sole motivator, it also becomes an automatic outcome of whatever u do.

The pressure of getting placed on day zero is immense here. It becomes a ego issue at times and I wish I could tell everyone who falls into this trap the words of Mother Teresa that read:

"In the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway"

2006-10-12T23:14:00.000+05:30

Sangharsh 2006:

The sports meet was announced quite long back but the enthu built up only gradually. The thing is that at this place if u ( a fachcha i mean ) wanna take part in any extra currics event, u gotta be mentally prepared to manage ur time to the absoloute second and be ready to put in the extra effort so as not to sacrifice on studies, which u really cant afford to

11 sports were scheduled in all that carried points and the rest few were just fun games like frisbee ( the IIMA sport ) and Tsepak ( the IIMB sport ) . The selections for all sports had started long back and even though the fachchas found it tough to manage, the response was pretty encouraging. I wont say the practice was upto the mark in most of the sports but considering the severe time constraints we all work under, I think we did a decent job in getting as much practice as we could barring a couple of sports.

The meet was scheduled over 3 days and was the first in the Sangharsh series which I hope both the institutes carry in for years to come. Kudos to both the sports coms for getting this event off the ground.

The IIMB team arrived on friday night/saturday morning and lo behold !!! What do we see......They have prepared special T-Shirts for the event that read : "Lets teach those nerds how to play ball" Holy cow...if they thought that we were some pushivers who dont know anything else other than academics, they were sadly and badly mistaken !! That very instant our resolve to beat them was strengthened and we were all pumped up to prove them wrong

Man, what audacity.....in a way it was good for us coz it got us going in full tempo. The tournament kicked start with Cricket. I have to accept that their team and preparation was very professional and even though we made a decent total, they chased it quite comfortably. Full marks to them......The overall scoreline ( IIMA-IIMB ) read 0-1.

We knew they were on a high after the victory and the second event planned for that day was Badminton. We knew we have to win this one to get level and we couldnt afford to get them away with 2 wins on the very first day. We heard they had a national level player but our resolve was made of steel.....We had faith in ourselves...We had hired a wooden court in a club outside and steadily crowd built up minutes beofre the start of play. By the time the match started, the court was full of supporters, shouting slogans and cheering the team....The enthu was seen to be believed....Every point that we got was met with huge applause and the standard tempo shouts. There were Singles/doubles/Mixed doubles matches planned, for both men and ladies. We lost a hard fought first Mens singles but after that it was WIMWI all the way We demolished them in all the other games and the final scoreline read 6-1 We had got our revenge, our entire sports team got a huge morale boost with this comeback and we were all geared up for the next 2 days.....The overall scoreline 1-1.

Before I go ahead, I just wanna mention that I represented IIMA in cricket and badminton and won my badminton singles match as well I may goof up in the order of some of the events from now on and i hope the WIMWIAans and IIMB people reading this would excuse me for that.

Tennis was next in line that took place at WIMWI campus way late into the night, after midnight. Now we have a class player in our team and we were confident of winning...and thats what precisely happened. We beat them by a heavy margin and there was no doubt all along who was dominant. So, end of day 1, we lead them 2-1

With every win, only 1 thought occupied our minds....to make them eat their own words of what they wrote on their t-shirts.

The next day was the most hectic one as majortiy of the events were lined up on that day. I may not be able to go into the details of all the other sports as I wasnt physically present for all of them, but briefly, here is what transpired. IIMB beat us in Chess, which I was told went to the final seconds, Ditto with swimming, where again the finish was very close but we lost. However, we got our revenge in Football and Snooker. We won football handsomely by 4-1 if i remember correctly. I am told it was a clinincal performance and i have no doubts abt that. Before this match, our football team had played a couple of matches in a tournament at NIRMA university and had won by margins of 9-1 in both the games We later went on to win the tournament comfortably and defend the title.

In snooker as well, we inflicted a heavy defeat on them with the star being our very own PGite Anubhav kaul. Both footbal and snooker, just like badminton and tennis, were almost one-sided.

We also went on to beat them in Table Tennis, again pretty heavily ( 6-1 again if i remeber correctly ) So the WIMWI team was on a roll and with each victory we moved from strength to strength. The support we got was awesome and the the constant tempo shouts kept us motivated in all the events.

By the evening, we led 5-3 and we knew one more victory and we would be the kings !!!

The next event in line was Volleyball and the court was jam packed with all the supporters. We had a graba night that time on campus but the noise and enthu was so much that people left their dances and came to the court to cheer WIMWI. The environment was electrifying to say the least We had prepared two banners as a response to their T-Shirt and held them all throughout the match to show them whos better !! I wont disclose one on a public forum but the other read :

" Sangharsh 2006 : Another chance for you to be the second best"

We beat them heavily in Volley as well and there it was !!! The Sangharsh trophy was ours We led 6-3 overall in a 11 event tournmanet. The crowd support was awesome to say the least during the volley match. There was sledging going on as well and the tempo shouts knew no end....we just kept on going and going...

The remaining two events were only for academic interest...Basketball and throwball (ladies). I have to say their basky team is awesome indeed and they displayed a thorough performance to rout our team.....But the real tension and sledging was going on among the supporters.....2 factions had formed and what sledging Oh god....I wouldnt have been surprised had things gone out of hand.....But maturity prevailed and finally all was peace.

The final event was throwball the next morning which we again won very confortably....So there it was, a perfect end.

IIMA beat IIMB in Sangharsh 2006 by 7-4

IN the closing ceremony, their sports com president acknowledged candidly that they came here with the intention of teaching us a few things but underestimated our potential and didnt realize we wud be so good......
I have to appreciate his statement and his maturity.....A very gentleman like ending to the the sports meet and we all appreciated his frankness and maturity by giving a huge round of applause...

All said and done, kudos to IIMB for putting up a splendind show despite the tremendous home support we had...Hats off to you guys !!! We hope to have a good time next year as well when we visit them.

Personally, it was a super tough but exciting week for me. I am a big sports freak and had not played a single sport in the first term. And hence I grabbed this opportunity with both hands and was ready to put in the extra effort to do something which I love. Plus doing something apart from studies finally at WIMWI was thrilling. It was tough. We used to go for badminton pracitce night 9 to 11 to the club....I would come back and mug for the next day....and then wake up again at 5.30 to go for cricket practice....It was taking a toll on the body but my mind was relishing it

The tournament was so very exciting. The feeling of cheering your team mates and college on the sidelines of the court......Those tempo shouts, this time not of section A or dorm 23 but of WIMWI...The feeling of unity and spirit of being a part of the WIMWI family....I have to accept all this got me emotional.....I felt proud of being here, being wiht everyone, fighting for my college and sharing all the ups and downs together.

WIMWI showed great spirit and proved yet again that its the best, be its acads or sports. But what mattered to me the most was the strong bonding I reinforced with the institute and my tuchchas.....
...from holding up the college banner standing on an iron railing....to shouting "WIMWI ka tempo high hai" with the entire college....

...the feeling is exhilirating to say the least

Into the second term now...

2006-10-02T03:33:00.000+05:30

I am so so tempted to start writing about the IIMA-IIMB sports meet thats happening on campus but I will do that a couple of days later....Coz I need to get hold of what has happened so far in the 2nd term !

After the 5 day break, everyone was back with only 1 feeling : The break was too too short. But somehow people weren't complaining so much about leaving home and coming back to WIMWI....That speaks of our changed attitude now. We were kinda enthu about getting back to campus....i think we have already got so used to the life here that it felt like leaving one home and coming back to another.

The 2nd term is said to be a lot more chiller than the first. I can see 2 reasons for that. One coz the workload is indeed less compared to first term; the subjects are not that taxing (barring a few including MANAC which i guess will keep running after me till i die ); the emphasis is more on group work now. So we have many more regular group meets coz there are lotsa presentations that we hv to make in order to prepare for the next class. But the actual mugging is certainly a bit less than the first term, not much though.And the second reason is pretty straight forward. We have already seen and faced the worst in the first term. And hence now we are mentally and physically prepared for anything..Its tough now for anything to psyche us out . Men of steel we have become !!

Plus the second term has lotsa extra currics happening ! The IIMA-IIMB sports meet is currently going on....we then have our marketing fair "Insight"....we have our B-School Summit "Confluence"...and the list goes on.

It has so far been a super duper hectic term for me...Not so much coz of the mugging, but coz of the plethora of things I have been doing. There are the group meets that we have almost every day which r good fun coz my grp is really cool . Plus I was busy giving interviews for a couple of clubs of WIMWI and managed to get selected in one of them too. Plus the practice for the sports meet. I got selected in the Badminton and Cricket teams. We would go for badminton practice every night 9 to 11....Come back....Mug for the next day and hence sleep by 2-3.....And again get up at 5.30 to go for Cricket practice to a nearby ground that we had booked. I used to have a great stamina but the inactivity in the first term had made me rusty and hence the toll on the body was huge.....It got pretty tought to manage all the mugging, sports, clubs etc at the same time but I was quite enthu abt it as finally I got play sports at WIMWI...something abt which I am so passionate....And hence I didn't mind the extra load .

Now that the sports meet gets over tomorrow morning, things look to be getting better in terms of paucity of time. But its great fun....The more I see the non-academic side of WIMWI, the more excited I get.

As far as the quizzes go, we have had one MANAC quiz and a couple of In-Class quizzes. More are sure to follow coming week but even the total quizzes are supposed to be less this term.

And ya, the Garba fever has gripped Ahmedabad and how could it leave WIMWI...So everyday some group of students or the other go to either NID or CEPT or few other places where Garba is famous and let their hair down.

IIMA played host to IIMB for a 3 day sports meet called Sangharsh 2006, that involved 17 sports out of which 11 were worth of points and remaining just for fun.

This was certainly the next most exciting event so far at my stay here after the T-Nites. What happened during these 3 days ? Who got the trophy ? Was there attitude & aggression ? Do the IIM guys know how to be kings in sports apart from academics ?

Coming up....Sangharsh 2006 !!!

Celebrations

2006-09-20T01:55:00.000+05:30

The T-Nite result day later transformed into a celebration day..or rather a celebration night. We all decided that we will meet up after dinner to go on a victory lap all around the campus.
We gathered old tin cans that had so far survived our beatings over the past 4 nights and I caught hold of a whistle too. All armed, we assembled near the mess. And from there started our victory march. “Section A ka naara hai….T-Nite hamara hai” We went to each dorm, shouting this and our other tempo shouts, beating the tin cans further and blowing the whistle at the top of our lungs !!
The idea being very clear….to make as much noise as possible and let the entire wimwi know that sec-A was on a victory round J It’s a tradition at this place to sunk people with water when they come to your dorm and it was practiced to the fullest when we reached every dorm during our march. And as it is it had started raining. So there we were, shouting slogans and beating drums and simultaneously getting wet under the buckets of water and the rain gods at the same time. It was nearly a 2 hour celebration, whereby we touched every dorm at wimwi and the enthu never waned. An awesome celebration, a very well earned and deserved as well, I must say.

The T-Nite were much more than a cultural fest. It was much more than an inter-section competition. It was much more than the noise, the rivalry, the talent, the sleepless nights, the tension, the fun and in the end the victory. T-Nite made us bond, united us as one, gave us new friends, some of whom will remain so throughout our lives. T-Nite taught us life at IIM-A is much more beyond academics, it taught us that all those scholars are capable of letting their hair loose and dancing at 3 in the night to wild music, it taught us that whats most important is not the self, but the class and it in a way redefined our future stay at wimwi.

Post T-Nite, we all seem to get much more comfortable and set in our daily routine. The load was still the same, but out attitudes towards handling the same changed I guess. We were much more relaxed and positive and started enjoying the stress and load. It no longer seemed to be a pain and it felt like we have finally arrived at wimwi. The classes were much more fun and so were the frequent parties we had.

The post mid term period passed in a flash. Towards the end things got super hectic. We had loads of assignments, projects and quizzes apart from the regular class preparations. The end terms arrived so soon and it felt as if the T-Nites had just ended. As usual I wont go into the details of the exams. In a nut shell, they were tough but interesting and there were mixed emotions about them.

What happened after the exams ?? Coming up shortly….

RJM-4

2006-09-16T11:30:00.000+05:30

Occasion: T-Nite 2006, Day 4
Location: RJM, IIM-A
At stake : The covetous T-Nite trophy

It started off to be a lazy Sunday morning. We all were supposed to meet at 9 in the classroom to get going for the final day’s prep. But everyone was so tired that by the time we assembled it was abt 11. And then we realized there so much to be done in so little time.
The final day has very few items on the agenda. One is the class act. Each section has to present a skit/play that involves nearly the entire class. All of us have to perform some role or the other in the play. The stage is big enough to accommodate everyone. It was the most challenging to job to design a play for so many people and one team of guys was completely devoted to that for the past few days. The script was more or less ready by the final day and what remained was to start practicing and get everyone involved. The first ever practice of the play took at place at 6 pm and our show time was 8 pm….:) Everyone was involved in some things or the other and hence to get all of them together to practice for the play was tough…but we finally managed to get 1 practice in at least !!!!

Apart from the play, another exciting event was the CR Act. Now the CR of every class has to perform a solo act for 6-7 min. So we helped our CR to prepare a song and then she dance on the same. She is hugely talented and we knew we stand a great chance to win the CR Act. The music band also prepared a small snippet and by the evening the tension was building up !!

“What ?? The clothes for the trees haven’t come as yet ? Where is the logistics manager !!!” These words echoed half an hour before we were set to go on stage. The play required some people to be dressed as trees and there clothes hadn’t arrived as yet. A small video snippet was prepared on our section song that was supposed to be played while we would exit after our performance. That snippet wasn’t ready completely half an hour before 8 and there was panic there as well. The huge banner which was being made ready by our expert poster group still had lots of finishing touches to go !!
But despite all this, everyone kept their cool and worked frantically to sort out the last minute issues. We were working till the last minute before we left the classroom but in the end, we somehow managed to wrap all the preps just in time. We literally ran and reached the auditorium lest we get late even by a minute.

We were in time and the performance started with another boisterous entry followed by the dance troupe. Then came the Class Act followed by finally the CR Act. Everything went as planned and all performances were very well appreciated by the audience. No glitch anywhere and the exit was supported by the display of the section song video, which gave a sort of a sentimental tribute to the performance of Section A over the past 4 days !
We came out shouting our tempos and once again the tuchchas told us they wud be highly shocked if we did not win the trophy, so good was our performance. Our theme this time was “Jungle” and once all our performances including the play and the CR Act were based on that. It seems this once again clicked with the judges. We came back to the classroom and celebrated our performance till late in the night. But one tension was palpable…..the final results...they would be out only by next day afternoon !!!

Day: Result Day, T-Nite 2006
Venue: CR 7, IIM-A
Time: 1310 hrs

The last lecture got over dot at 1:10 pm and even before the prof could leave the class, we were all literally jumping on to the class computer to check the final results, which we heard had been put up by then. And even before we could login, in came our section seniors, shouting on top of their voices….The joy on their faces said it all…..the final cumulative points tally stood tall…..and we all shrieked in joy !

Section A DECLARED WINNERS OF TNITE 2006 by a huge margin !!!!!!!!

I could feel my eyes getting moist….I couldn’t help it. Everyone all around me was dancing with joy, giving hi-fi….and I stood there, recollecting all that we have been thru in the past 4 days..and the realization that we have actually won the coveted trophy was not dawning on me. I was awoken from my trance by my pals who hugged me….and as if by magic I joined in the boisterous celebrations..shouting tempos and dancing !!
We looked like a bunch of kids…but our happiness knew no bounds !! We immediately headed for the mess where we knew all the classes would soon be coming and the entire class divided itself into two and each group lined itself along the path that leads into the mess. And the moment people started coming, we started off. There is this very rhythmic chant of A..A that goes along with a whistle and drums…we started that along with matching claps. It was like a mini anthem…And we greeted the entire crowd with that. They all knew the reasons….It was the display of our pride of winning the trophy and as they went in one by won, they sportingly congratulated us..
No hard feelings..genuine appreciation and we responded in the same manner. What a moment that was.

I will end the TNite description by telling how we celebrated our victory that night and what did T-Nite do to all of us, not only the Section A people, but to the entire fachchas of WIMWI, and how our lives were changed quite a bit after that day.

Will be back tomorrow. And yeah, I Know I am late, but post mid term was hectic as hell and before I knew end terms were here. Anyways, my first term is over and am back to pune for 5 days.
Will do all the catching up on writing that I missed till now.

Keep rocking !!!

TNite, RJM 1

2006-08-15T02:16:00.000+05:30

The T-Nites are long over, but the excitement is as fresh !! And today we all got reminded of it again....Why ? I will come back to that later.....But first lemme continue from where I left !!! Yeah, the second half of the T-Nites

After the dismal performance on day 2, we were all charged up, thanks to the tuchchas also, to go out there and give a scintillating performance on the RJM nights. OK, our auditorium here is called the RJM is short and since the second half of the T-Nites takes place at the auditorium, its called the RJM nights.

Our classes got over on saturday afternoon and we knew we had very little time on our hands to get our act together for the first of the RJM nights that same night. We all quickly had our lunch and got back to the class to start off a marathon preperation session. Oh man ! One should have seent eh enthu and commitment. We were all working frantically with one single aim.....to rock RJM 1. A main hurdle was to decide upon a theme. It was critical that we have a theme for the night coz thats where we had lost points in the past 2 evenings. After much brainstorming, suddenly someone came up with an idea of 7 !!! Seven ?? What the heck is that.....was the initial reaction. But slowly it started making sense.....our class was CR 7...our fashion show had a theme of seven emotions/qualities/styles......our dances came from the seven seas.....and our music spanned seven continents !! yeah, not a bad idea.....And so it was decided....7 is the theme for the night. And voila !!! The poster team immediately got going and started work on a real real huge banner for the stage. What a fundoo modern design it was depicting 7....I tell u, these girls in our class are damn talented !!

The rest split into their own teams and started practicing....Before we knew it was time to go to RJM......The dress code was black for everyone. So there we were in a group moving towards the RJM.....a huge black group shouting slogans, a bit nervous thoug. Nervous coz the practice was not cmprehensive due to paucity of time....We were not sure if we would be able to pull it off well.

One good thing we did this time was that we had planned our entry and exit well coz there were points for that also. When we all enetered, a song started playing in the background..."Zindagi mil ke bitaayenge" from satte pe satta...Boy, the strategy was bang on target, it worked like magic with the crowd coz none of the sections had enetered on a song......which was also related to the theme. We all got on stage and spread oursleves out coz its a huge stage and we needed to cover the entire stage. Just imagine, nearly 60-70 guys on stage cheering, waving, dancing !!!

The show started with a yanni rendition by our ace pianist....Man...this guy is a genious when he plays the piano.....it was a perfect start and the audience couldnt help but bowing to his magic. Performances came one after the other, all brilliant i must say....Not just coz it was my section....genuinely it was a class show that we put up....The music band was great.....The dances were our strength with some fantastic dancers in our class.....One dance was performed by a guy and a girl on the song "oh humdum suniyo re"....the guy danced western and the girl classical.....It was beautiful indeed...And the last item was a solo western dance act by another girl.....One of the most brilliant acts I have ever seen.....The crowd got up from their seats and everyone bowed to her....

All the time someone was performing on stage, the rest were all behind on stage cheering, dancing along wioth the performer. When the final act got over, we were signalled we barely have a minute to get out of the auditorium....Oh boy....we collected all props as quickly as we could and ran like crazy to get out of the auditorium so that we dont exceed our time limit, which would in turn extract a penalty.

We all came out, took a breather and shouting and cheered at the top of our lungs....Coz we knew we had done an awesome job.....We could hear the audience screaming "Awesome Awesome" when we were performing......And this was ratified when our section seniors came out and told us that ours was by far the best performance of the night....They said we have surpassed all expectations and were clearly much better than the rest....What jubiliations....we knew we were back with a bang !!

BUT..................the fashion show was yet to be done.....When all sections had finished their performnaces, then the fashio parade for each section was to start....We had nearly a couple of hours to get ourselves ready for it. We came back to the class and started practicing.....And it was then I came to now that I was also there in the fash P. Ha ha ha....i somehow managed the attire ....got some practice abt what I was supposed to do.....the seniors and the class girls did the make up for all of us....And voila we were all ready....

The fash P was based on the theme of 7 and displayed 7 emotions/styles ( like lust, greed, envy etc.) What a thoroughly professional performance.....Had u seen the fash P, u would have thought these guys r professionals practicing since weeks......It came out perfect, stylish, sauve, elegant......this class never ceases to surprise me with its talent and energy..

We came back to the class and knew we had aced the fash P as well......the seniors again told us this was the best fash P amongst all the sections.........

Within an hour the results for the day and the cumulative results so far of all the 3 nights were put up on our internal communication client......

Our class, Section A, were the top performers of the day by a huge margin. .....We were top in every category...entry, exit, events, music, dance, theme, enthu...everyhing. We were also the top in fash P, again by a big margin....

And since the weightage of RJM1 and RJM 2 is mucg greater than the mess nights, the cumulative standings said : "SECTION A at the top rank by a comfortable margin"..

Woowwwwwwwwwww......Our enthu knew no bounds.......We shouted till our throats started acihng......We had come back with a big bang...We knew we had the talent for the RJM nights and it was proved right...

The seniors treated us with a pizza treat.....Imagine treating 70 people with pizzas....But then this is IIMA and everything is so special here.....The pizzas came in the class and we all relished them while simultanouesly working for the next day...

One final hurdle to go....We knew we cant afford to relax.....Every section will raise their performnace on the last night and we cant be complacent.....We had loads of stuff to do...Decide another theme, another banner, get our class act going ( will explain later what this is) .....lots of stuff to worry abt...

But the tempo was high...Coz we were at the top.....We decided to pack for the day and come back the next day early to startf off the final leg of preps with a renewed josh....

What happened to Sectino A on the final night ? Did we win the trophy ? Or did we slip up ? How much masti we did on the final night ?

Stay tuned......Willl be back tomorrow !!!

We rocked T-Nites

2006-08-07T00:30:00.000+05:30

Phew....
In the past 23 years of my existence, I have never seen and felt so much enthu, fun, talent,coordination,hard work,partying,planning,panic,strategy,contingency,bonding,unity and to sum it all.....PURE MAGIC !!!

Yes, I am indeed talking about T-Nite 2006. These words can only hint at what the T-Nites r all abt......U gotta feel it to understand its magic...I will describe each day of the event in installments in the next couple of days.....

First let me desrcibe the format of T-Nites. It lasts for 4 nights and is an inter-section contest among the 5 sections of first year students, A,B,C,D and X (X is of the PGP-executive course started this year). The first two take place at the mess which are very informal events with a small makeshift stage and all the tuchchas sitting on the floor and cheering/booing us,depending on how exciting perofrmance is. Each section is alloted a time slot of abt 20 min. The time included ur entry and exit in the mess and penalty points are deducted if u exceed the alloted time. There are points given on hosts of factors ranging from strength of class participation, posters, enthu level of the class and the actual performnaces. The Mess nights are such that you can not have any plays or something very formal and high class kinds stuff.....They r meant for lots of masti and thus u need great dances on catchy songs that can keep the boisterous audience rivetted.....the music must never stop !!! The last 2 nights take place at the auditorium about which I will write later.

On the first day, the T-Nite are officialy inaugarated by the PUB-RUN that take place in the afternoon. OK, before u get weird ideas, lemme explain what it is. It stands for "Publicity Run". Basically each section has tio put up posters in the mess complex for their publicity. IN order to decide which section gets which places on the mess complex walls, this run is held. Getting the ideal places for ur posters is super crucial. So what happens is that there are 10 runners from each section. The enitre batch (all sections) gathers at some distance away from the mess. When the whistle blows off, the first runner of each section runs off into the mess comlex, carrying newspapers/cloths marked with their section names on them. Its kind of a race who reaches first to get the best places. So when a guy pastes his newspaper on the wall, then that place is booked for that section. Once the pub run is over, the section can come, remove the paper and put its poster there. After 1 minute of the first runners, the second set of runners of each section dart off and so one till the last runner. The total time for pub run is 30 min.

Now I was the first runner from our section. It had started raining when all the sections had gathered outside just before the begining. The preps were frantic. All the runners were carrying huge newspapers (which had been prepared for the last few days) with their sectin names, cloth etc. Tapes of different shapes, types and sizes were pasted on our shirts, body and wherever there was space so that we dont have to struggle for tape inside the mess. Waise the papers already had the double sided tapes but still. So there we were, tapes all over our body and papers in our hands, all waiting for the whistle. The runners were in line for each section and all the other section people assembled behind cheering us up. The anxiety built up, so did the section tempo shouts....."Section A ka tempo high hai......." There were drum beatings, slogans, synchrionized claps and what not, each section sheering their runners. 3.....2.....1...the whistle went and all 4 fronts runners (me for Sec A) darted off amidst huge cheers. Wow......After a long time I was running so fast.....i was put as the first runner basically coz of my spped and it pasi dividends as I was the first one to reach inside and grab the place we had planned acc to our strategy. Othrs followed soon and then there was frenetic activity with people shouting for tapes, climbing on tables, and what not. Finally after half an hour, we all came out to be received by our section in style. It was raining outside and the entire sectin was standing and cheering for us.......Thas called bonding and that what T-Nites are al about.

So that ended the pub run. We got decent spaces and though we cud hv done better, it was a good show. We also put up a huge piece of cloth (sheet) at the entrance of the mess that hung from the roof to the ground. It contained a huge DNA shape with the dorm names of all the sectin people mentioned on it. It looks so majestic.

Then came the first mess night. Before I go ahead, lemme tell for all the 4 days, we spent most of our time in the classrooms preparing....went to the dorm only to sleep. We all reached in time for our slot at the mess in a huge group shouting new and innovative tempo shouts. There are also marks for tempo shouts and the junta enthu. Our time came, we entered shouting slogans, all of us surrounded the small stage and the events started. There were mostly dances and all we reamining people stood besides clapping, shouting, dancing etc...We have some of the best dancers in our class and that really helped us thorughout the 4 days of the T-Nites. Our performnace was indeed a hit and the tuchchas liked it I guess. We all came back to the class, celebrated among ourselves for giving a great performance and then went about preparing for the next night.

After that we completed out studies for the next days classes. Coz classes go on as usual. Its upto u to find time tostudy despite the crazily hectic T-Nite. I finally slept at 7 am and got up again at 8 for the classes. :)

After Day 1, the cumulative scores read : Section A ranked 2, ahead of Sec X, B and C. What great jubiliation for us. But we knew its just the begining. There r 3 more nights to go. And also the weightage for the mess nights is much less.....the weightage for the auditorium nights is much more and they can change ur fate easily.

The same sequence followed the next mess night. However, this time our performnace was not as good and we were a bit disappointed. The cumulative scores after day 2 said we went down to the 4th spot, and that hurt. But our section tuchchas lifted our spirits, motivated us to go all out next day. As it is now the audi nights would start and they carry much more weightsge than the mess nights. And we knew we have some amazingly super talent in our calss to give a classy show on the audi nights.

So we went about the prep with even more gusto with the sole aim of coming back with a bang !!! Post the mid term exams, we have classes even on saturdays,. That meant the even on sat we had to attend classes even when the audi night was on the same night...Nevertheless, after class got over, we all had lunch and came back to the class for prep. And when I say all it means abit 50-60 odd people :)

What happened at the auditorium nights ? Could Section A come back ? Did we please the seniors and judges this time ? Did all our high class talent pay dividends ???? How exciting the audi night was ? How as our enthu and prep ? What happened on stage ??

To find out, keep visitng this space. The second half of the T-Nites 2006 will be coming up shortly.

PS: the final results are tom afternoon...Am super nervous, so is the whole class......Will keep u informed :)

2006-08-03T03:42:00.000+05:30

My table clock says its 3.45 in the morning, my eyes are blurry, my mind is exhausted but my heart is at peace. Coz finally the our first big exam at WIMWI, the dreaded mid terms are over !!! The feeling is so amazing. After the tremendous amount of studies we have put in past week, now the regular prep for class and the everyday studies look no big deal. Though I know its not far that the same grind will start again day after tom, but the relief of getting thru the exams is still overwhelming......Dont ask me how they went, thats another question all together which I prefer not delving into :)

The past week was full of anxiety and tension as people didnt get enough time to study for the impending exams...the regular class study was itself consuming all our time. In the mess during meals, the topic of discussion veered always towards the mid terms.....its like the enitre campus was obsessed with it. I wont bore you with the details of the exams. I will just say that they were unlike any other exams I had ever given. Most of them were open book, but the papers were so damn application oriented that there wasn't much you could do with the books. You dont have to by heart anything for the exams. They purely test your concepts and application skills. There is no format for the exams, u never know if it will be objective or subjective or whatever.....u do not know how long the paper will be untill u actually get the question paper. So every subject has its own unique characteristic for the exams, very much unlike our engineering days. The only thing common to all is that they r all damn tough :) But then thats what makes the process even more exciting !!

Let me move away from the boring topic of exams !! If you are wondering what am I doing at this hour of the night (or the morning I should say) even when the exams got over today, its the T-Nite preparation. Yeah, the much awaited annual 4 night inter section event starts tomorrow and we have hardly enough time to prepare for it. So the entire class was sitting in the classroom and preparing for the same. And boy its great fun. So theres one group who is busy making posters, another practicing the skit, another the dance, another the fashion parade and the remianing not doing anything either click snaps or join in the poster making....Coz the number of posters u make are never enough....the more the better.
And then suddenly we all stop what we are doing, get together in the centre of the classroom, switch off the lights and play the music full blast and start dancing.....And its an awesome sight...everyone just letting sll their worries out and rocking to the beats.....knowing how to dance is immaterial, having fun is the essence. The class room are a completely different picture during the prep than what they are during lecturees. Therese paints all across, charts here and there, people sipping coffee while working, loud music blaring all along.......I have captured all the moments on the camera but can not post it till the T-Nites are over. The entire prep is a section secret and can not be leaked out of the boundaries of the class, lest the other sections take advantage of it.....So I will post the snaps this weekend.
Actually thats the purpose of the T-Nites, more than an inter section rivalry, the aim is for all the classmates to bond together and the friendships we make here go on for a lifetime. The sense of unity is developing and I can see that the enthu level is surely increasing. We also got our section T-shirts.....:)

It already past half of first term and I dont even realize it....another month and I will be off to home....boy how much I am looing forward for that. But persoanlly, I am pretty much settled here now. The tensions of studies have stopped bothering me so much and even the dreaded accounts subject has stopped coming in my nightmares. Its not that I have maxed the subjects. The truth is actually pretty contrary :) But the fact is that my attitude is relaxed and that gives me peace...thats my way of coping with the load and it sure is working.

Before I finally hit the sack, I can't resist sharing one tradition here.There are many small traditions at IIM-A which makes this place so special. U will slowly get to know them as my stay here progresses. Anyways, ya, what happens is that there is a thing called a "tempo shout".Its slogan which a big group shouts in chorus and which demonstrates the unity and strength of the group. The group can be ur dorm, ur section, anything. And though there is one standard tempo, each sectin does has its own variants. In fact, its very common to hear the tempo shout somewhere in the campus every day.
Ok so now that the T-Nites fever is on, the section bonding has grown. After class, each section heads for the mess for lunch. We arrives in hordes of 70 students. And when we enter the mess, we start the tempo shout....Imagine 70 people screaming at the top of their lungs....."Section A ka tempo high hai.......". And when we are inside the mess, there are others as well present there. Now why will they keep quiet and listen to the praises of some other section. So they all will start banging their steel glasses on the table continuously so that our tempo shout can not be heard in the din of the glasses.
So the entire scene is so cool. One group shouting the tempo shout, rest baging their glasses on the table....the end result is total chaos.....and we all love it :)

And then there will always be these tuchchas shouting in the groups to psyche all the poor fuchchas out....."Muggo fachcho muggo..." But they r the same ones whom u can wake at 4 in the morning to ask a doubt in a subject :)

I want to talk more but my fingers are giving up, so are my eyes. I will get back soon here in 2-3 days to give an update of the T-Nites......

Till then....."WIMWI ka tempo high hai....."

A month old

2006-07-21T17:24:00.000+05:30

Time flies, isn't it ?? It seems just yesterday that I was at the Pune Station, standing at the door of my compartment, waving my friends and mom dad goodbye......smiles on the lips, anxiety in the mind and pain in the heart.
And here I am now, one month old at WIMWI and when I look back now, it all seems to go by in a flash !!
The week was comparatively lighter on load than the last one. We had two quizzes as compared to four last week !!! But I have now stopped bothering so much about the load......That is something taken for granted here so U got to live with it. I am trying to enjoy the entire process now and am realizing am under much less pressure this way.

I had gone to the library yesterday and saw the latest issue of Business Today, that contains the annual survey on B-Schools. WIMWI was, as expected, ranked first but there was something else too that got a smile on my face. The cover page showed our director with a group of the 2007 graduating batch, thats our seniors, the tuchhas. Even inside the magazine, where theres was a special report on the college, there were few other snaps of various tuchhas. It felt absolutely great seeing those snaps. These are the people whom I meet everyday, I know them personally, know their names and some of them are even in my dorm. To see all of them in the magazine is a thrill of its own. Also, the magazine had a photo of the Vikram Sarabhai library and mentioned how its one of the most comprehensive libraries in the country. I was sitting inside the same library and reading about it in a national magazine. Another moment of thrill for me !! The magazine also mentioned CT, Cafe TANSTAAFL, where we regularly hang around....( It stands for "There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch")

Interviews have started for the various clubs this place has. Its a very formal procedure and gaining entry into any of these clubs is indeed a big thing. I have given couple of interviews this week and hope to get shortlisted for few others in the days to come. There are going to be laods of events happening here in the coming months and the preparations for the same have already begin. For the first time I will be persoanlly witnessing what it takes to organize events of such huge scale and prestige. Most of these events are the biggest of their kind in Asia Pacific and attracts big names from the industry. It will be exciting and I will keep this place updated as and when these events occur.

The weeknd is going to be hectic. Lots of catching up on studies front. Plus we have th complete the Operations Mgmt project work. For that we will be going out of campus tomorrow and then preparing the report. And yeah, the Mid-term exams start from 31 Jul, next monday. So we will all be tensed about them throughout this week I guess. But with all the quizzes and regular studies that we have been doing, its not gonna be like our engg college days when we would sit with the bools at the 11th hour and mug.......Here its gonna be more of a revision of what we have been studying till now. But its a huge syllabus and am not sure how much I will remember of what we have studied so far :)

The elections for various posts are taking place today. For a change, i did not stand for any post. Till now in my life, I had always served posts like the school captain, class CR, and other such leadership roles. But this time I opted out. I will, nevertheless, be actively involved in donning any responsibilities that the class and the batch needs me for.

Just after the mid terns will begin the much awaited T-Nites....There is not much time to prepare for them and thats why my class has started work on it. Its gonna be an awesome week when the T-Nites happen.....will keep this place updated. But uske pehle deadly mid-terms hai :(

The classes are going great as usual....Each class is enriching. Thankfully, we get samosas and Coffee/tea after the first class, at about 10.15. For the new campus souls like me who skip the breakfast, this is a boon !!

And the ritual of crowding on the PC after the last class for the dreaded quiz notice continues........But the non-academic action of this place is slowly coming to light as the days progress and I am looking forward to it.

2006-07-14T20:06:00.000+05:30

"If I tell you the average depth of this river is 1m, will you cross it by foot ?"

The HR prof asked us in a commanding tone to make us understand that averages do not give the true picture and its the spikes that practically determine a course of action. The class was silent and suddenly out of the blue the prof looked at one guy and signalled him to answer.......We all were expecting an obvious answer, and the guy said "No sir, I will not cross it by foot.....I will get wet " !!!!!

The entire class burst out laughing....We all couldnt control ourselves....amidst this serious discussion, here comes a whacky answer that lightens the mood. The prof too joined in the laughter and we all laughed for quite some time !!....The prof also amused by the answer doled out to him....ha ha ha !!

This is how the week started for us....The first class of HR on Monday !! Actually these HR classes are really great….I never thought this subject would be interesting…but the prof is so great, he makes the subject so lively…he gives us anecdotes, cracks lots of jokes and is really an expert on the subject…Makes us analyze seemingly simple things in great detail. You have to be really alert in his class coz he randomly picks up people to answer stuff…..and if you haven’t prepared for the class, you are in serious trouble. But even then, the classes are good fun coz of the exciting way he teaches….

Monday went fine…..Accounting classes take a toll on me and I as usual struggled to keep pace with the class. Tuesday afternoon after lunch we reached the mess and the deadly notice board awaited us…”There will be an OM quiz today at 2.30 pm in the respective classrooms”……Bang !! There goes my lunch……Came back to my room to refresh for the quiz. I wont go into the details of how the quiz went. In a nut shell, tough is the only way I can describe it.

Little did we know this is gonna be the trend for the entire week. For 4 days on the trot, till today, we had 4 consecutive surprise quizzes. A quiz notice is put up on the notice board in the mess and also a mail is sent at about 12 noon informing all the students about the quiz to be held at 2.30. So what happens in the class is that once the class gets over at 1.10, everyone flocks to the computer kept in the class and one guy checks his mailbox to see if there is a quiz notification mail or not. So its become a ritual for the class now…everyday at 1.10, gather at the PC to check for the quiz mail !!!

Ha ha ha….I have in a way started enjoying this entire ritual now….The quizzes are super tough is a different thing…..How I fare is a another thing….But this entire excitement, this uncertainty…I have got used to all this now and we have started expecting a quiz every day now……I think the surprise in the “surprise quiz” is now redundant….In fact we get surprised if there “isn’t” a quiz anyday!!! J

So it has been a tiring week that went by in a flash…it seems only yesterday that I had gone to my uncles place !! We have now experienced the pressure of having 4 continuus quizzes now…..so it all is a great learning experience !! We are surely learning how to handle extreme pressure, how to stretch ourselves to the limit…And I tell you, you wont realize how much ur body and mind are capable of !! We always underestimate our capabilities……this place makes u aware of them.

This week also continued my changed attitude towards life here. I am much more relaxed about things in general. I know I am bad in Accounts , but I try not to get too perturbed coz of it. I have been talking to people regularly on phone and realized it’s a great stress buster….I am getting used to this life now and have stopped cribbing about the load….On the contrary, I am enjoying the process now and trying to understand its tremendous benefits. The load and pressure is here to stay…its upto me to decide how I look at it..And I have decided to be positive and take every load, every quiz result, every pressure in my stride….And I can already see the effects !

There was a birthday in the dorm early this week and it was great fun…..There is a great tradition at this place to celebrate every birthday in the dorm in style…..It a wonderful experience, u tend to forget all ur load and just enjoy the celebration !! There is an elaborate procedure that is followed to celebrate every birthday, and it ends up being a great affair !

My sleep hours varied vastly this week. One day I felt so sleepy at 12 only and went to sleep, only to get up at 5 to complete my prep for the next class……Another day I was awake till 4.30 and was fresh enough to carry on more…..yesterday however, I slept at 12 and didn’t have the stamina to get up early…….Got up at 8…….My longest ever sleep at this place…..I felt so so guilty….I compromised on studies to get some more sleep…..U generally don’t so this here…..And I know I probably wont be able to afford it anytime again !!

We have got an Operations Management group assignment where we have to do a study on a service based organization and analyze its operations and suggest changes….The report is going to be submitted next Monday and I know its going to be a tough week ahead to manage the regular studies with this project work. We will be going out of campus to complete the assignment..And we have to manage this in our non-class hours…So its gonna be one heck of a job…..But its also exciting and I hope we make a good job of it !

Whenever any prof teaches in the class, he invariably gives practical examples from his consultancy experience or his stints with high profile firms…and you can’t help but admire the competency level of these people….They are gods and every word they say is full of weight and wisdom….and humour too. I have noticed this..they all have funny side to them which makes their sessions even more interesting !!

There are going to be elections for various posts here next week and early next month, there will be the much awaited T-Nites, about which I will tell as the time comes….So all in all, lots of exciting stuff in store for us apart from everyday’s study load and the no so frequent quizzes……Nearly everyday is a quiz day now !!

LKP is the famous landmark in the campus, which usually occurs in all the photos of IIM-A in media…..Its surrounds huge lawns and the sight of LKP and the library with huge circular arcs is awesome when u sit down in the lawn….I sat in the lawns few times in the night to study and the feeling is awesome…..u feel so powerful to be sitting at this historic place, yet so meek to realize the big names that have sat here and in comparison, your own miniscule self worth !!

Its weekend now..and no WAC report submission J But theres the OM assignment for which we will have to go out tomorrow….and then there is lots to catch up on studies front….lots of backlog to cover…..But its still a bit relaxing ! Theres no immediate pressure….u can always catch up on sleep….people are relaxing right now….some are playing football, some badmintion, some strolling, some gone out to shop or some r just pure sleeping !!!

Whatever it is, we are all bonding now. Bonding as a family, understanding each others woes, helping them out, sympathizing on the quiz load and smiling together in spite of all this, chatting and relaxing on the intranet and doing all sorts of masti!! That’s the only way we can sustain this load…..

Going back to that Monday morning HR class…..one statement the prof said stuck me….He asked a guy about the world cup and he didn’t know anything abt it….the prof said “ Mugging all day is one thing, but if you guys as budding managers do not keep pace with whats happening the world, what good r u achieving in life……So be aware of the world outside this campus…..spend time in other activities…don’t have a ontrack focus only on studies……and if u want, u surely can balance ur time for other activities”

And since then I have realized…..it isn’t really that difficult to spend 15 min a day pouring over the newspaper and another 15 min chatting to a friend…..

Its all time management….and whether u like it or not, this place teaches u this in the best possible manner !!!

Two weeks at WIMWI

2006-07-08T15:54:00.000+05:30

A 2 week veteran at WIMWI now….
What a time it has been once the classes have started ! It seems as if I have been here for ages but when I look at the calendar, reality dawns on me that its just been two weeks…

Lemme first describe how a particular weekday goes here for me. I get up at 8…the worst moment of the day….I have started hating that alarm ring tone and have developed a fear of it..and hence keep on changing the alarm tone often !! After great difficulty I get out of the bed with my eyes all red due to the unending mugging of the previous night.

Classes start at 9 and three lectures take place, each interspaced with a 20 min break. Since I am in the new campus, it takes me time to go to have breakfast at the mess which is in the old campus and then come back for the classes to the new campus….I prefer to send those precious 15-20 min in sleeping extra !! Hence skipping breakfast has become the norm……At 1.10 the classes get over and we all trudge to the mess with a constant fear in our hearts….the dreaded quiz notice board !!
This is the NB that’s placed outside the mess and whenever theres a surprise quiz at 2.30 pm, a notice is out up there. And on an avg, u have abt 2-3 quizzes every week…..so u can do ur maths to find out how many times u have to skip lunch. Now its not necessary that u skip lunch when there a quiz at 2.30, but then somehow u feel its better u go back to ur room and study instead of munching your time away. There probably are two kinds of people who still have their lunch when a quiz is announced…..One who are studs and are ever prepared for any quiz and hence who don’t need to go back to the rooms for a last ditch revision. The other who have become so immune to the system that they know ki last minute padh ke bhi kuch zyaada faayda nahi hone waala…..so might as well relish the tasty mess food !! I belong to neither of the categories till now but am somehow pretty sure of joining the later very soon. J

I usually sleep for an hour after coming back to the room so that I have some strength to sit late in the night. And after the sleep, its study time till as long as your eyes permit you to stay awake….Haan, include the dinner trip to the mess in between which provides a good break from the monotony….

The entire teaching methodology is case study based. Every subject hardly has much theory, unlike our engg days. We discuss a practical case and apply our studies and theory to crack the case. Every student is expected to come prepared to the class with the case going to be discussed. We have been given a detailed schedule for the entire term that specifies on which day and what time, what is the case going to be discussed and what prior readings the student needs to do for the same. Hence, everyday, we have to do the reading and prepare the case for the next day’s classes. This activity takes about 2-3 hours for each subject, so with 3 lectures due the next day, nearly 8-9 hours goes in this prep. And apart from this is the backlog studies u have to do, the group assignments and other arbit stuff……And that’s precisely the reason why fachchas are awake mugging till late into the night or early mornings at times, depending on circumstances. In general, a sleep of 4 hours or more is surely bliss……

But I am slowly getting adjusted to this schedule. I had problems in the first week, where I was in a sort of trance, not being able to respond to the frenetic activity taking place around me….But the second week saw a change in me which I cautiously made an effort to implement….I was much more relaxed, realizing that the work load will always be there and hence theres no use getting worked up and tensed about it…..So I started taking things in a much more relaxed and mature manner…..I started reading the newspapers, started talking to my friends n family on phone and in general keeping a cool mind. All these things might look mundane to anyone outside WIMWI but trust me, in our first week here, we felt as if we are completely cut out from the external world and are living a life of our own…..its still the same case but my mindset of responding to events has changed…

We have had 3 quizzes till now….two went pathetic, one was quite decent….But am already getting immune to such vagaries…..My funda now is to study as hard as I can, Take time out to do simple stuff that relaxes ur mind and then not bother too much about whats gonna happen…Am sure things will take care of themselves.

However, life at WIMWI, as I am realizing slowly, is extremely rocking and fun filled apart from the mugging that the fachchas have to do….There are loads of other activities happening…The dorm culture is absolutely awesome and we have frequent dorm meets and dinners where all the dorm tuchchas and fachchas basically chill out and have fun. So there is lots of stuff to rest ur mind when u r down and out with the workload….

It’s a great learning experience….When I sit back back think of the kind of stress and long hours that I had put in, it makes me shudder, but then I also realize that in the end I do manage to come out of it and hang on…..This is what makes this place so absolutely great….You pass through fire and then come out rock solid to take on anything in the world…..this is probably just the beginning and there are many long tiring days ahead of me, but I have now started enjoying this place and this schedule and am confident that even though I might curse every morning about the lack of sleep I am getting, but in the end its gonna make me super tough, ready to withstand anything……

One great thing that makes this place rock are the tuchchas…They are all gem of people and have great enthu….They always help us out, understanding very well the kind of stress we go through… and they ensure that we have our share of fun as well….All in all, it’s a close knit family here…one large family..

The second thing that rocks here is the mess…..Awesome food is all I can say…..The mess is managed completely by a student committee, as is the case with everything else at campus….students do everything. There is great variety in food everyday and it tastes yummy…I never expected the hostel food to be so good and that provides a great relief when u come down to the mess after a tough day.

There are loads of other great things happening here and will list them in due course of time..
Yesterday night was a long one….I slept at 6 am…..Had to submit our first WAC (Written Analysis and Communication) report today…..This WAC submission takes place 3 times in the term….all on Saturdays….today being the first one….But the next 2 Saturdays don’t have it, so that’s good J

I am going to my mamas place after the submission that will take place in the next half an hour…..The post submission time today will be a chill period for all of us….We all have studies to do but are all so tired after the hectic week capped by the report writing, that this Saturday evening/night is fun time…..We will party, have fun, sleep , watch movie and basically relax ourselves…I will go to mamas place to get a break and a change of environment….have to also catch up on my sleep !!

Am leaving now for the submission and then for a relaxing evening……..Will be back soon !!

The welcome speech

2006-07-01T03:40:00.000+05:30

Written on : 22 june
Am sitting at the CC right now as seniors have taken our LAN cords for the time being. The net connection will be provided in our rooms in 4-5 days. But this is the best place to sit to escape from the heat. It has been terribly hot here and I have rarely seen this much heat in past few years of my life. Waiting eagerly for the rains now.

We all (students+parents) assembled in the auditorium at 5 PM for the welcome address by none other than the man himself, the director of IIM-A, the man whom I have seen millions of times on TV, the man revered all over the education and industry world...Prof. Bakul Dholakia.

Its a huge auditorium and when he stepped on to the dias bearing the IIM-A logo, the sight looked so awesome, so overwhelming, filling you with pride and fear at the same time. In the next few days, we will be meeting professors who are gems in their own field, who appear on news channels, who write in econominc times and business magazines.....we had only heard about them, to meet them personally and interact with them on a daily basis is a nerve wrecking prospect indeed.

Anyways, the welcome speech started by making us realize how fortunate and deserving we have been in sitting there today at the best management institution in the continent. After briefing us with the history of this institute, he went on to give us some facts about the standing of IIM-A vis a vis other institutes across the country and the world.

Just to give a brief update: IIM-A was started in 1961, the first management institute in the country along with IIM-C. It has been rated as the "toughest B-School in the world to gain admission into" by the Economist, beating places like Harvard and Stanford. In the past 5 years, more than 15 rating agencies have conducted surveys and all have continuosuly rated it as the Best B-School in India without any exception in every ranking.This place is very strict about academics and you just can't afford to slip up at all. Anyways, we were all expecting this.... After all, thats what makes IIM-A what it is.Towards the end, the motivation level increased again. He reminded us that in these seats sat the likes of MS banga, KV Kamath, Harsha Bhogale and Jerry Rao one day, and look what they are today. They have carried the name of IIM-A to the peak and thats what we will do in the coming years. The institute owes its success to these greats and it is in our hands now to carry on that tradition. With this, he ended, wishing us luck for our tenure here.

I felt rejuvinated. I felt honoured. I felt priveleged. I felt the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. I am in an institute that has produced real life heroes. The mere thought sends a shiver down the spine
The lecture was folllowed by tea and snacks for all students and parents. I was talking to the mother of a frined of mine and telling her that today she is here with all the students and parents at this first day on campus.....and 2 years down the line she would again be here when all of us would be wearing our graduation robes, laughing away in the glory of finally being a product of IIM-A. I dont know about her, but I certainly could feel my eyes getting moist at the mere thought of that day.

But all that is far away now. A gruelling shcedule awaits us starting this monday. In fact, there is a practice case study discussion this saturday itself for which we have to prepare beforehand. Ha Ha Ha.....the countdown begins.

PS: The entire teaching here is case study oriented. Will post the details when the classes start. We have already been given the entire course material and I just cant fathom how on earth are we gonna finish that in 2-3 months. Anyways, will give the details of the subjects n all in the next posts.

First Day @ IIM-A

2006-06-21T18:00:00.000+05:30

20 June

Here I am, finally! At the Mecca of management, at the best B-school in the country, the place where lakhs strive to get in every year and very few finally make it…..the hallowed portals of IIM-A.

The time had finally come when I had to move out of the house into a hostel. I had always wanted to experience the hostel life and have finally got the chance, and what a place to get it at! Let me first give a brief description of how the institute is organized.

The entire residential area at IIM-A is divided into dormitories. There are 27 dorms in all and each dorm contains about 30 rooms, with single occupancy in each. Three dorms are reserved for girls and the remaining are guys’ dens. A new campus has been under construction for quite some time now and contains 9 dorms, some class rooms, seminar rooms and few other things which are yet to be completed. The old and the new campus are located on two sides of the main road and are connected from inside the campus via an underground tunnel. The tunnel itself is a sight in itself and contains huge pictures of life, culture and history of IIM-A. The old campus is all open brick construction and the new one is all open concrete. I am no civil engg and hence can’t go into the details, but the crux is that there aren’t any plasters/distempers on any of the buildings and such a construction is very unique and extremely difficult to maintain. This construction is a rich heritage of IIM-A. I will post the link for few snaps of the campus shortly and will explain the other details of the campus in my further posts, as and when I explore the campus fully.

OK, now I reached the campus in the afternoon, and from that very instant, all I encountered at the institute was sheer professionalism. At the beginning itself, I never expected the security guard to be so cordial. He smilingly guided me to the SAC (Student Activities Committee) office in Dorm 4. After few formalities, I was given the room keys and the programmes officer himself addressed me personally and ensured that I do not face any problem. I was given a bag there itself that contained a telephone instrument and few other essentials that I would require in the room. Then a person accompanied me to the room and carried the luggage as well.

I have got a room in the new campus, dorm 23, room 30. The room is located on the second floor. The room is really good, with all basic facilities provided including a phone and a balcony. It indeed is very comfortable. Each dorm has a TV, washing machine, pantry and our dorm also has a TT table, though am not sure if I will get any time to use that. Initially, I thought that a room in the new campus is not that good as I would be a bit away from the buzzing life at the old campus, as everything apart from few dorms and classrooms is located in the old campus. The old campus symbolizes the actual traditional IIM-A and the new campus is till under construction. But I can’t help it as the rooms have been fixed for each student. Hope I get used to it soon. I met the seniors (henceforth referred to as tucchas, in IIM-A jargon) of my dorm and they have been extremely helpful, guiding me about the basic fundae of the life I am about to start here. What I have seen and been told here is that the dorm culture is very strong and your entire dorm becomes your family.

The actual registration of the course is day after tomorrow. Once all first year people (henceforth referred to as facchas, in IIM-A jargon) are here, then we will have dorm meetings in which our formal intro etc would take place. We have been given handbooks that describe the entire schedule of the next two years in detail and give other required info abt the institute that we need to know. The actual classes start from Monday.

I will be posting the events of the forthcoming days here as and when I get an opportunity to. The internet connections in our rooms have not been activated as yet and will be done in 4-5 days. Hence I will have to go to the (CC) Computer Centre to access the net. I don’t even know where the CC is. Will find that out tomorrow.

Its an awesome place and though I have not even completed 24 hours here till now, I can already foresee the great time I am going to have here. They say there is no life in first year. All u do is study as you have absolutely no time for anything else. So am already gearing myself up for that. Lets see whats in store as the days unfurl.

PS: I got the opportunity to watch the entire Eng-Sweeden match today in the dorm J Seniors said, dekh lo abhi TV, baad mein pata nahi kab mauka mile once classes start.
Its already 3:40 am…..a prelude to the night outs ahead in store I guess

First tryst with blogging

2006-04-25T15:50:00.000+05:30

This is the first time I am ever blogging. I am eagerly looking forward to my stay at IIM Ahmedabad. This blog will start flowing once I join that place.
You will be my partner in my roller coaster ride at what they call the best B School in Asia.